


Every Loyalty

by Zeppelin_Skies



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Drama & Romance, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2020-06-26 16:51:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 60,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19772410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zeppelin_Skies/pseuds/Zeppelin_Skies
Summary: "You claim that you'd break loyalty to your house and pledge allegiance to the North," Jon said. "But as you said, your family's full of liars." Whatever word he willed, his people would carry it out. Even if Larisa lived, this man, this King in the North could make her a glorified slave if he so chose. She was a Lannister, truly at the mercy of the North. [Jon/OC]





	1. A Great Honor

** Every Loyalty **

**_._ **

**_Chapter I:_ **

**_A Great Honor_ **

"Someone poisoned 'em, that's what I heard."

Larisa cuffed her little brother's ear and ignored him when he protested.

"Don't speak of such things," she said. "Straighten your letters or you'll start from the beginning."

She pointed out the words on the parchment that were uneven or crooked. If they were misspelled, she made him start the line over. When his hand holding the quill relaxed again, she pursed her lips and nearly sighed in aggravation.

"How much poison would it take to kill all those people?" he wondered. Larisa tapped the writing desk impatiently.

"Look here—"

"They said whoever did it put it in the wine…but how could the Freys be that stupid?"

Larisa turned to Martha, a girl who had been one of her mother's ladies-in-waiting before Larisa returned to Casterly Rock.

"Bring me some wine, if you would."

Martha set down the stitching she'd been working on. She nodded once in respect and was gone.

"The Freys weren't stupid, Willem," Larisa said. "They made enemies of their former allies by choosing to side with us."

 _And for massacring Robb Stark and his men with House Bolton_ , she thought, but knew better than to voice it. It was the truth, one that their father wouldn't speak of disapprovingly, least of all against the brother he had loved. The brother murdered by his own son, her cousin Tyrion.

As much as she didn't want to think ill of the dead, it was a dishonorable thing Uncle Tywin had done.

And yet, they had been at war and now they weren't, effectively ending the Northern threat. They were all safer because of it.

"Did they ask for our help?" Willem asked, and reached for a small custard tart on a nearby tray. "They must've known their friends would hate them."

"They wouldn't. House Frey was proud, but—"

"So they _were_ stupid," he said with his mouth full.

 _It isn't that simple_ , she would've said, but didn't want to engage him further on the topic. A boy of eight shouldn't be thinking about horrid things like that.

Larisa rapped his knuckles just hard enough to make him hiss in pain, and plucked the second tart out of his other hand.

"You have twenty more lines to go, little brother, and we won't be breaking before dinner."

Willem reached for the tarts again, but she slid the tray out of his reach. He growled and jammed the quill back into its ink bottle, then crossed his arms in annoyance. Larisa leaned over and brushed his golden hair away from his forehead.

"If you want to squire for a knight so badly, you will need to read and write suitably well," she said, "along with many other skills besides snacking."

A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, mirroring her own, until he smacked her hand away and stole the tarts out of the room before she could catch him.

She sighed. "Little cretin."

_And where is Martha?_

"Did she crush the wine grapes herself?" she muttered.

She got up, intending to scour the kitchens for the girl and scold her for her impudence if need be.

"Lady Larisa." Ser Thane Brisby, one of her father's men, stood at the door. "Your father wishes to speak with you."

* * *

The fire in the hearth crackled in the near silence. Larisa worked to keep her temper as she stood before her father, Kevan Lannister. Her mother sat near the hearth with her knitting forgotten in her lap.

A shuddering breath escaped Larisa's lips. "I will not."

"It is done," he said. "The preparations are set for your leave within a fortnight."

"I will not be _sold_ to the North—"

"You understand, don't you? That you will become Lady Bolton of Winterfell," he said sternly. "King Tommen has commanded it."

A raven had come in from King's Landing just that morning; the message brought news of the unfortunate and untimely death of Lady Walda Bolton, due to complications from her pregnancy.

Since the all too recent slaughter at the Twins, House Frey was in no position to offer another bride. And if what Larisa had heard of those plain-faced Frey women was true, Bolton wouldn't want another one of them.

As a token of condolence, supposedly House Lannister would help in the matter.

"You mean Queen Cersei has commanded it," Larisa guessed, correctly if her father's shifting expression was any indication.

"You will honor your house, just as you have done before."

"You rescued me from court after the Battle of Blackwater," Larisa began, as she tried in vain to work out why this was happening to her. Again.

"After Harden's death, you let me come _home_."

"So that you could mourn your husband in peace, away from that snakes' pit of King's Landing."

"And now you would cast me out _again?_ " she stressed. Kevan only joined his hands behind his back.

"Lord Bolton is an…honorable man," he said. "The match is suitable."

Larisa shook her head. _An **honorable** man, who broke his oaths to the Starks when it suited him? I think not._

"This union will secure House Bolton's loyalty to our family, and to our king."

Ah. _That's_ what this was. She was stupid not to make the connection before now.

"So this is where we are." Larisa said. "We forge alliances with turncoats, and I must become another man's wife."

Kevan looked down at her with a mock smile of disbelief, mostly of her audacity. She knew she spoke recklessly, as she would never have to anyone at court, or even to her late husband. But she knew her father would never strike her.

And after Blackwater, she would no longer quietly accept her fate.

"Did you speak so freely in Joffrey's court? Or in Golden Tooth, to your husband?" he asked. "Or is it that you've become too comfortable in commanding your mother's ladies."

She quieted, chastened slightly, but she held her chin high and stubbornly defiant.

"You will not go alone," Kevan said eventually. "Willem will squire for Lord Bolton as well."

Larisa sucked in a breath, blinking in shock. "You can't mean that."

"It is agreed. Both of you will ride north."

It was one thing to give her—a widowed woman, young though she was—to an important ally. It was something else entirely to give away his youngest son to squire for such a man. Not even a knighted man, though named Warden of the North.

"Their sigil is the Flayed Man!" Larisa shouted. "Father, how could you, in good conscience—"

" _Are you lord of this house?_ " He raised his voice over hers, loudly enough that it startled her. Her father had always been a restrained man, honest and usually fair.

But the hard, frustrated anger in his eyes frightened her into silence.

"Answer me."

"…No, Father. I'm sorry."

Kevan nodded. "Go then."

Larisa quickly took her leave.

She held her tears until she could turn her back and return to her quarters.

The Lord of Casterly Rock remained, and tried in vain to ignore his wife.

Dorna Swyft regarded her husband with a mixture of disgust, anger, and fear for her children.

"If you had only _taken_ Cersei's offer," she said, "this would not be happening."

"She is a spoiled child who uses her son's weak will to rule as she sees fit," Kevan said dryly. "Tywin wouldn't have allowed it. To speak of that fabricated title she would offer me, _Master of War_."

He nearly spat the words. As much as it rankled to admit, Cersei had insulted him. _His_ family, that had always supported his brother in all things. She presumed to think she could manipulate him as well as her son.

"If Tommen will not name me Hand of the King, then I have no reason to sit on the small council."

Dorna refused to hang her head, or shed tears, but she felt sick for how heavy her heart felt. "Your pride might destroy us."

* * *

That evening, Dorna watched bemused as Martha set another small pile of books into a travel case. Larisa lit another candle; the window in her chambers was large, but the sun was falling below the sea and soon there wouldn't be enough light.

"You mean to take a library with you?" Dorna remarked.

"I suspect reading will be my only pastime," Larisa said, and collected up her personal stationary to be set with the rest of her belongings. "Besides watching snow fall on dead trees."

"You will be Lady of Winterfell," her mother reminded. "Do not forget your household duties."

Larisa huffed and sat heavily on the edge of her bed. "And how will the northern lords recognize me as Lady of Winterfell with Sansa Stark sat beside me?"

"Sansa Stark is the bastard's wife," Dorna dismissed with a wave of her hand.

"King Tommen legitimized him. He's been notarized as Ramsay Bolton."

"He may claim his father's name all he likes, but Roose Bolton's men will recognize his authority only. Especially once you give him a son."

Larisa gripped her hands in her lap tightly. Once the war began, she had done all in her power to keep from giving Harden Lefford a child, let alone a son. If she had, it would have secured her fate as lady of a noble Southern house, should his father Lord Leo Lefford die sooner rather than later. But…

"Lara, dear heart."

Her mother's hand resting over hers interrupted her thoughts. Larisa raised her head, but Dorna set a thin golden chain in her hands. An oval-shaped pendant hung from it—gold plated, for her house. Spiral scrollwork circled a dark green stone.

"You will not be surrounded by people who bear much love for Lannisters, as you were at court, and at House Lefford," Dorna warned in a hushed voice. "You will not find anything familiar to you in the North. Nor anything safe."

Larisa wanted to know why she should wear something that would so obviously mark her as a Lannister then. But before she could, Dorna opened the pendant—a locket really—and revealed the small glass vile inside. It was less than an inch long and looked as if it only carried a few drops of the clear liquid it held, but looking into her mother's eyes, Larisa knew it would be enough.

Dorna closed the pendant carefully. She caressed Larisa's hair and was grateful it was brown, like her own, and not golden like her brothers, or her infamous cousins. But the bold green of her eyes were too clearly of her father's blood.

"Protect yourself and your brother, if you can," Dorna said. "Remember who and what you are."

* * *

It was too bright and cloudless the morning Larisa and Willem were to ride north. Incidentally, their father would be riding south.

A raven had come the night before with news from the capital, and this morning, Kevan Lannister was pleased.

"It seems Lancel made some use of himself after all," he remarked.

"You speak of him as if he were dead," Larisa said, only just veiling her disgust toward her father's attitude. Meanwhile, Ser Thane readied her horse. He and a select few would be escorting their small party north, while the rest of her father's hired knights traveled with him to the great southern city.

"He forsook his own house to serve a cult," Kevan drawled.

It was true. The Faith Militant were known as the Faith of the Seven when they began whispering to Lancel, and convinced him to leave his family, titles and future in order to join their fold. Now they apparently struck more fear in King's Landing than the royal family, with Queen Margaery and Ser Loris Tyrell imprisoned by the High Sparrow, the leader of the Faith Militant.

And armed with Lancel's testimony and supposed "repentance" for his sins, they had Queen Cersei imprisoned on accusation of incest with her own cousin.

Larisa had little love for Queen Cersei, but she hoped they would judge those repulsive accusations baseless. She would rather her older brother be called a liar.

But now, with no one left to guide King Tommen, Grand Maester Pycelle now summoned Kevan Lannister to serve as Hand of the King.

"Father, what about Will?" Larisa asked him. She tried to grab his hand and hold it in hers, as he had done when she was a child, and lulled her to sleep with stories of the great battles fought to create Westeros. Those stories she had spent her entire life reading about as she added more and more precious books to her collection: The history of the Iron Throne. The histories and sigils of houses. The free cities and peoples across the Narrow Sea.

And the other things her father had taught her to value: What it meant to carry the name Lannister. Why family should be cherished above all else.

"He is now your _heir_ ," she implored. "Why would you send him away as well?"

Her father hesitated, and she watched him as he watched Willem struggle to get up onto his horse. He had to be assisted by Ser Thane, who dutifully reminded the boy of how he should handle himself while on the animal.

"I am not sending him away. He will return when it is his time to become Lord of Casterly Rock," Kevan said. He slipped his hand out of hers, and instructed Ser Thane to help Larisa onto her horse as well. "Until then, he will learn the way of the world. Become a man."

Once she was situated onto her horse, Larisa shook her head. She looked up at the bricks that made up Casterly Rock, the place she was born and had lived since childhood with her brothers and cousins. She saw her mother watching from her chamber window.

Dorna didn't smile. She had stood there an hour already, and promised she would not move until she could no longer see the horses.

Ser Thane gave the order to begin their ride. Larisa gripped the reigns of her horse and glanced back at her father.

"Cousin Cersei will eat you alive when they release her," she muttered. Kevan mounted his own horse and gave her a sharp, reproaching look.

"The Queen Mother is not to be feared," he said. "But you'll _mind your tongue_ , Larisa. From this day forth, do you understand?"

She turned her head forward and followed Ser Thane's direction.

"From this day forth, you have no daughter."

* * *

It was a long and hard ride to Winterfell.

A little over three weeks, and the immense castle came into view. Willem was excited for it; he had enjoyed just being on a horse to begin with, seeing the villages and rivers and other landmarks familiar to him pass by to new lands he'd never seen. Every day of their journey was a new adventure for him, while every day along the Kingsroad weighed Larisa more with trepidation as they got farther into northern territory.

Through Riverrun, past the Vale of Arryn, through the Neck and the Barrowlands. She was nearly sick with anxiety by the time they reached the large black gates, which opened for them easily.

Men waited for them when they got down from their horses. Northern men. She could see it in their lean faces; hard, unrefined men accustomed to living through long winters.

But they were not greeted by Lord Bolton.

"I welcome you to Winterfell." It was a young man, likely only a few years older than Larisa. He was unshaven, but well-dressed in dark gray furs and leather.

"My Lady," he addressed her with a courteous bow at the waist. "It is a great honor."

Remembering herself, she gave a deeper curtsy and cast her eyes downward. "It is a greater honor to be here, my lord."

"Where is Lord Bolton?" Ser Thane asked. Larisa rose slowly, but she watched the young man closely, warily.

He joined his hands behind his back. Then he smiled, a slight pull at the corner of his mouth that…unsettled her. His expression changed to one of sadness, as if he had been grieving for some time.

"Oh, that's right," he said. "We only just sent a raven south this morning."

His pale blue gaze met Larisa's and held it.

"My father is dead. I am Ramsay Bolton, Lord of Winterfell, and Warden of the North."


	2. House of the Flayed Man

** Every Loyalty **

.

**_Chapter II:_ **

**_House of the Flayed Man_ **

The new lord of Winterfell was gracious. He bid the small party of knights and attendants that had escorted the Lannister siblings to stay and rest a fortnight before the majority of them traveled back south. At the evening meal, Larisa studied their host.

"The fever came on suddenly," Lord Ramsay said. "Our maester tried everything within his power, but it wouldn't break."

"I am sorry for your loss, my lord," Larisa nodded her head respectfully.

"Aw, no. He went peacefully, in his sleep!" he said with a grin. "I'm sure he'd rather have gone down covered in the blood of his enemies, but..."

He shrugged one shoulder lightly. "Not everyone gets a glorious death."

Larisa hesitated. She didn't trust the casual way he spoke. There was curiously little grief in his eyes. All she could offer in reply was, "As you say."

She glanced to her left and noticed her brother Willem carving up his steak and potatoes with vigor. Butter sauce dribbled down his chin.

Discreetly, she reached under the table and pinched his thigh until he winced. He threw her a private glare. She gestured to the cloth beside his hand with her eyes, to which he rolled his own. But he got the message and wiped his face.

When Larisa returned her attention to their host, she found him watching her with some amusement.

"Are you enjoying the meal, my friend?" Ramsay asked. Willem raised his head, blinking owlishly. He smiled sheepishly.

"Yes, my lord," he nodded. And then, belatedly, "Thank you, my lord."

Ramsay winked. "Good lad."

Larisa silently steeled herself. "My lord, please forgive my presumption, but may I ask when Lady Sansa will be joining us?"

Ramsay paused with his fork poised at his mouth. He set it down as his expression fell.

"Ah, yes. Just before my father fell ill, one of my servants conspired against me," he admitted. "He stole Lady Bolton in the night, and has delivered her to Castle Black, to her bastard brother Jon Snow."

He nodded to himself, clearly determined.

"I aim to get her back."

"Of course, my lord. How tragic," Larisa said, affecting concern. "I pray for her safe return."

She studied the young man's face, searched for any hidden pockets behind his words. He seemed sincere, but the timing…

He hadn't spoken of Walda Frey's death. It had to be the start of all this, whether it was incidental or not. She had not known Roose Bolton. His poor health could very well have been incidental as well. But for Lady Sansa to have been "stolen away," as it were, just before the former Lord Bolton took ill? Tragic indeed.

A glance down the table confirmed that the news didn't appear to sit well with Ser Thane either. The man ate his food in silence, until he met her gaze seemingly by chance.

Larisa turned back to Ramsay. "I had heard glorious tales about your father's prowess in battle, and of his proud, auspicious house. I had looked forward to our match."

"Yes, it was a great honor House Lannister gave us. But although your presence here has lightened the darkness in my halls since Lady Bolton's disappearance, I'm afraid your ladyship would be wasted here," he said. "I already have a wife."

Larisa let out a small breath of relief that brought warmth and feeling back into her limbs. She would be able to return _home_.

_But…_

Larisa paused, glancing to the boy sat beside her. He looked up at her, and then at their host with wide eyes. "And what of my brother, Willem?"

"Oh!" Ramsay said. He crossed his arms, looking thoughtful. "Well, I suppose I'll have him squire for me instead."

* * *

As soon as it was socially acceptable to retire from the meal, she found Ser Thane and had him send two ravens: one to Casterly Rock, and one to her father at King's Landing.

This was his fault.

It was no secret that Kevan Lannister had always stood in the shadow of Tywin Lannister. Larisa feared her father had stood there so long that he was no longer himself. And now, taking up his brother's place as head of House Lannister and Hand of the King, he was finally able to measure up to the example her uncle had left behind.

He would, and had, sacrificed his family for good of house and legacy. And to keep Lannister control of Westeros.

That night she couldn't sleep, both because of the thoughts that kept her awake and for the frigid cold that seeped into her bones, no matter how many furs she piled on.

The next morning it disconcerted her, that she didn't find her brother at breakfast. She wandered the great halls of Winterfell, well lit with torches. It was a grand place, she could admit; the inner walls had been rebuilt since the ironborn Greyjoys had set fire to it months ago. She almost wished she could have seen it in its original state, when the infamous Ned Stark ruled here.

She'd never met the man, but she often saw him about the palace when he served as King Robert's Hand. He seemed to measure up to every story she'd ever heard, the honorable Ned Stark.

She had watched from a nearby balcony when Joffrey gave the order, but averted her eyes when the man's head had fallen and rolled a trail of blood from its body. When she next looked up, Sansa Stark had lost consciousness in the arms of a Golden Cloak, and Larisa's stomach had turned violently as the cheers grew.

 _How barbaric_ , she remembered of that day. And little else.

"Lara!" Willem called to her from the courtyard just outside the keep. Larisa hadn't noticed her path had taken her to the walkways that formed the outer perimeter of the castle. She could see her brother waving up at her a story below, on the ground, with Lord Ramsay Bolton.

Larisa tensed at seeing the bow and arrow in the man's hands. "Will, what are you doing?"

"Lord Ramsay's showing me how to shoot," Willem said, brimming with excitement. He stood in front of a strawman that was only a bit wider than the boy himself. "He's brilliant! Just watch!"

Ramsay shot her a wink and knocked the arrow. "Not to worry, my Lady. I work best under pressure."

Larisa panicked. "Willem, move this instant!"

"I wouldn't," Ramsay smirked. He let the arrow fly.

Larisa's heart seized as she gripped the stone ledge.

The arrowhead pierced the straw figure, a breath beside Willem's right eye. Even as far up as she was, Larisa could tell no blood was drawn. That didn't mean she hastened any less down the stairs to examine her brother fully.

It had taken her entire will (and biting her tongue until it bled) to keep herself from releasing her full wrath at Lord Ramsay. But clearly the man was a well-trained marksman.

Somehow that didn't ease her anxiety any less.

In fact, she spent most of her day avoiding him in case she lost her temper. She couldn't afford to misstep here; she did not know this lord or his people, and she wasn't about to press her luck.

Martha, her handmaiden, drew her a hot bath that evening. She depended on the warmth now, which was very new for her. She found the freezing cold bitter and unpleasant, among other things. But as far as that list went, her chattering teeth ranked lowest.

Larisa sighed in relief as the scalding water thawed her. She closed her eyes, held her nose and dunked her head below.

She soon surfaced and opened her eyes.

And then she gasped, gripping the edge of the basin.

Instead of her handmaiden, Lord Bolton stood in front of the closed door.

"What the hell are you doing?" she shouted, abandoning all notions of politeness for his abandonment of propriety.

Ramsay grinned mildly and made a small step forward. She immediately crossed her arms over her breasts and leaned back against the basin, glaring fiercely at him. She restrained herself from glancing to the nearby stool, where she had laid her mother's pendant.

"A raven returned from King's Landing," Ramsay said pleasantly, and retrieved the note from his pocket. He held it up for her to see but folded it again before she could catch any of the writing.

"When you're presentable I'd love to share it with you."

Larisa also restrained herself from launching a bar of soap at the back of his retreating head.

* * *

She had half a mind to call on Ser Thane. But it was a particular kind of game that Lord Bolton was playing, and Larisa was just starting to piece it together.

"I'm so sorry, my lady," Martha fretted as she helped Larisa into clean underclothes, and then into a dress and furs.

"You obey _my_ orders, _not_ his," Larisa whispered severely. "Is this why you accompanied me to the North? To have me exposed like a whore before these savages?"

Martha's fingers trembled as she fastened buttons and tied laces. "No, my lady."

"Oh, do stop sniveling," Larisa huffed. She batted the girl's hands away and finished the rest herself. "Get the door."

Martha did as she was told and opened the chamber door to Lord Bolton. Larisa wanted to tear the smile from his face as he entered and sat himself at her writing desk. He glanced at her stationary and other trappings there, while Larisa remained standing. She gave him an expectant look.

"I have some…very disturbing news from the capital," he said eventually. "You may want to sit."

"If it is all the same," she said tersely, and bade him go on. He inclined his head and sighed.

"It's not what you were hoping for I'm afraid," he said.

"And what would that be?"

"Permission to return to Casterly Rock, of course." Ramsay said. His eyes held hers directly in a way that only continued to make her uncomfortable, as trepidation began to rise in her chest.

"It appears that the Queen," he said, "has been very, very angry about her imprisonment."

"Queen Margaery?" Larisa feigned confusion, though she knew the true answer.

"Cersei was to stand trial before the High Sparrow at the High Sept of Baelor, along with Loris Tyrell. The entirety of the Faith Militant were in attendance, including your brother, Lancel. As were Queen Margaery and her brother, the accused," Ramsay said as he inspected his fingernails. "Also in attendance were several lords and ladies of the court, and the entirety of the small council, including your father, the Hand of the King."

Larisa felt dread claw its way past her chest and into her throat. Ramsay flicked his gaze back up to her.

"Please, my lord. Do get to the point," she said, but without the strength she had hoped for. He grinned.

"The Great Sept was destroyed by wildfire," Ramsay stood with a dramatic flourish, as if painting the scene with his hands. "Heartbroken by the loss of his queen, King Tommen threw himself from the Red Keep! And Cersei, clever girl, has been made our new queen."

Larisa shuddered a halting breath.

She would have crumpled to her knees, if not for Martha who supported her. As long as she lived, she did not think she would forget the smile Ramsay Bolton wore as he took strides out of her chambers.

* * *

"Be more careful here, Will." Larisa held her brother close, drying his tears as they came. For the first time since he was a much smaller boy, he hid his face in her skirts and let her run her fingers through his soft golden hair.

After a while, he sniffed and peeked up at her.

"Father…he told me something," he said, "before we left."

She swept more of his tears away. Despite her better judgement, she asked him what that was.

"He said…he said I was coming because I needed to learn things. How to be leader," he said. "But he said I was coming with you to do it…so we wouldn't be alone."

Even with this, Larisa didn't break down like her brother had. It was the shock of it, she told herself. It wasn't that she didn't… _feel_.

Perhaps something was wrong with her.

 _Yes_ , she thought. _Very wrong_.

Yet after all, her father had not quite become Tywin Lannister.

* * *

Lord Bolton was all too cheerful the following morning. Strangely, he had all but ignored the Lannisters, though he'd had the audacity to wink at Larisa before he stepped out into the courtyard. She didn't dignify it with an outward reaction, but she imagined the scalding hot bowl of soup in her hands, pouring it over his genitals.

As oddly satisfying as the thought was, it was cut short by the sound of horses entering the gates. She pulled Willem closer by the arm when he tried to run ahead of her to see the commotion, keeping him at her side.

Larisa only recognized the sigils of their banners from illustrations in texts she had read, but if she wasn't mistaken, four silver chains linked by a central ring on a blood red banner was for House Umber, just south of the Wall.

They escorted two hooded figures into the halls of Winterfell, where Ramsay and a man Larisa now knew to be Harald Karstark led them into a larger room, closing the doors behind them.

Larisa shared a glance with her brother, discreetly bidding him with her eyes to follow her outside. She knew where there were tall glass windows that didn't just offer light into that room.

"What if they catch us?" Willem whispered as they stood shivering in the snow.

"Don't make a sound, or they will," she threatened.

Thankfully Lord Umber's voice carried, and they were more or less able to hear.

The men of House Umber had caught something in the woods. Something they would trade for Ramsay's support against Wildlings that had been led over the Wall by Jon Snow, Commander of the Night's Watch.

Larisa knew the name Jon Snow. He had to be Ned Stark's bastard that had taken the Black. But this was the first she'd heard of him being made Commander of the Night's Watch. How could a boy his age have accomplished such a thing?

" _How do I know that's Rickon Stark?_ " she heard Ramsay ask.

And the name cut Larisa out of her thoughts. Her eyes widened.

_One of the Stark boys survived?_

* * *

Larisa waited until all the candles were blown out that night. Until the sky was dark as pitch. At her request, Ser Thane led her to the stables, with an order to Ser Thomas, his right hand, to remain guarding her chambers as if she was still sleeping.

"This is a tricky thing we're doing, my lady," he warned. She didn't answer, merely holding tighter to the basket she held. But they snuck past the stables to a tower beside the main keep.

"Curious, that no one guards the door," Larisa said, keeping her voice low.

"'Dangerous' is more the word, my lady."

"Why's that?"

"It may seem Lord Bolton is not preoccupied with having his prisoner guarded," said the knight. "Either he's stupid, which is unlikely, or he's setting a trap."

Larisa gave him a sidelong look. Who had cause to set a trap within their own walls?

"For who?"

"I don't know, my lady."

"I don't care," she dismissed. "He can play his boorish games, but he can't touch me or Will. Else sever his alliance with all Lannisters."

Ser Thane took one of the torches from the wall and lit their way down a flight of damp stairs that led to a darker and colder place.

Rickon Stark, sat in an iron cell against the far wall. He raised his head when he heard them coming, but when he saw them, Larisa could see his confusion, as well as his fear. He was just a boy, with bedraggled hair and dirty, threadbare clothes.

"Hello, Rickon," Larisa greeted softly. "I'm Larisa."

"Who are you?" his voice was small, but his doe brown eyes were full of mistrust.

"I was sent here to wed Roose Bolton. The man is dead, and now his son rules Winterfell. I believe you've met him."

"What does that mean for you then?"

Larisa smiled slightly. "I don't know yet."

She knelt down in front of his cell. From this close, she could see the small cuts and bruises that littered the boy's hands and face, likely from the Umbers giving chase to catch him.

She set down her basket beside her and took out a bowl of water and some cloth. "I know it's not much, but would you like your face clean, at least?"

She watched Rickon openly judge her appearance, trying to tell if she was what she seemed, or if she was tricking him in some way. She also saw the moment he decided an unarmed woman with a bowl of water wasn't a threat.

Larisa reached out her hand to him. After a little more hesitation, he placed his hand in hers. She dabbed the rag in the water and began wiping the dirt from his hands, gently over his cuts and scrapes.

"They took Osha," he eventually whispered.

"The Wildling traveling with you?" she asked.

"She's not so wild," he said, and bit his lip as he looked down at their hands. "She's my friend."

"How did she come to be your friend?"

"My family took her in."

Larisa hummed. "That's very gracious of them."

More gracious than her own family would have been to a Wildling.

After a beat of silence, Rickon raised his head. "Why are you here?"

"I told you why—"

"No," he said. He took his hands back from her once they were clean. "Why are you…being nice to me? I thought Lannisters hated us."

Larisa blinked in confusion. _How the hell did he know—_

Rickon glanced down at the pendant that hung from her neck. "I've only seen Lannisters wear gold."

She looked down as well, and she smiled again. _I told Mother this would be an eyesore._

"Well, it's a simple thing really," Larisa told him.

" _And just when I thought good fortune would never visit me again!_ " Ramsay had raised his ale and his men had raised their mugs and drunk with him.

" _That little brat will be the key to ending Jon Snow and his pack of savages,_ " he'd said, " _And then I'll rescue Lady Bolton._ "

" _He's just a boy, my lord,_ " Larisa had implored him. " _Surely—_ "

" _I'm sure he's happy to be home_ ," Ramsay grinned. " _Where he belongs._ "

Larisa took the cloth again and began wiping the grime from his cheek.

"I suppose you remind me of my brother," she said. "He and Martyn, his second brother, often played too rough when they were younger. They came to me and my mother with scrapes and bumps, and once Martyn shaved a part of his head with his training sword."

She looked at the boy's face, his brown eyes and hair, and saw a rare innocence for how much he had likely already seen. She may not be able to truly help him, but if she could, she would bring him back with her to Casterly Rock. She planned to leave as soon as she received word from Queen Cersei.

It put bile in her throat to ask anything from the woman who had murdered her father and brother, but the last message from the capital said Ser Jaime had returned to King's Landing. Surely he wouldn't allow her to leave their only remaining kin stranded in the North. Not when neither Cersei or Jaime wanted to leave the Iron Throne to sit at Casterly Rock.

And when they rode south again, Larisa didn't care if she had to steal the boy away. She would not leave an innocent with this Ramsay Bolton. Rickon may never be happy in the south, but at least he would live.

Or perhaps she should send him north, to Jon Snow and his sister Sansa.

 _Yes_ , she thought, getting up to her feet. _That would be best._

That would be _right_ , house loyalty be damned.

"Will you come back," Rickon asked. His voice was small again. Larisa hesitated.

"If I can."

* * *

Ser Thane only parted ways with her once they reached her chambers. He shared a nod with Ser Thomas, who nodded stiffly back. Larisa entered the room. She would've asked Ser Thomas if there was any trouble on his watch, but he closed the door firmly.

When Larisa turned, she could barely stifle a gasp.

Ramsay sat there, on her bed. "I've been pretty bored, waiting on you."

"What are you—"

"What did _you_ ," he stood smoothly and started toward her slowly, "speak with Rickon about?"

Larisa was locked in the direct stare of his pale blue eyes. They were predator's eyes.

"He's scared," she said, and hated her voice for barely rising above a whisper.

"He should be," Ramsay smiled. Larisa stepped to the right for every one of his in the opposite direction, pushing her further into the room.

"You were married before, weren't you?"

An odd question, but she humored him. "Yes."

"Harden Lefford, you were married three years," he said, "'til he got shivved at the Battle of Blackwater."

She tensed, and her lips pursed. It would've only taken a few minutes' questioning her handmaiden to have gotten that information, but she supposed such an invasion of her privacy was nothing to this man. "He was slain honorably in battle."

"Honorable," Ramsay laughed, "'Harden the chinless,' they said behind his back? Though I'm sure if they'd said it to his front, he wouldn't a' had much to say either."

"He was prouder than you, _my lord_ , which was only the stem of his many virtues," Larisa drawled, but Ramsay was on his next question before she could ask why this was at all important.

"Three years. That's a long time to be married without children. I assume you love the little buggers," he remarked knowingly. "But why were _you_ at Blackwater?"

"I wasn't _at_ Blackwater, I was at the capital," she snapped.

"But shouldn't you have been at Golden Tooth, where House Lefford sits?" Ramsay asked. "It made sense for your husband to be there. I mean, his father, Leo Lefford. I assume he part of Lord Tywin's forces that stamped out ole' Stannis. But why were _you_ there?"

Her mouth went dry, but she answered, "I was attending a wedding."

"Really?" Ramsay said. His hand brushed over her writing desk. "They had to know Stannis Baratheon was closing in. Why have a summer wedding just before a siege?"

"We tried to leave the capital, but it was too _late_ by then," Larisa said. " _Why_ are you so interested in my first marriage, Lord Bolton?"

In two strides, Ramsay was breathing her air. He only stood a couple of inches taller than her, but she knew she had to be shaking.

"I think you gave your husband a reason to join his father into battle," he smirked. "And pride cometh before the fall, after all."

It was a moment before Larisa could speak. But when she was able to loosen her tongue, she said, "In the morning, I will be leaving for Casterly Rock."

Ramsay raised a brow. "Oh?"

They both knew very well she was not authorized to leave the north. Larisa no longer cared.

"I will take every knight and handmaiden in my company, and all I've brought with me to Winterfell," she said, " _including_ my brother. You had better not stop me."

She pushed at his chest firmly with her hand, but Ramsay held to it tightly, keeping her in place.

"I can see in your eyes that you're very good at keeping secrets," he said, and rotated her wrist experimentally. She tried not to let it show that he was hurting her as she tried to extricate herself from his grip. He grinned down at her.

"I'm better at it than you."

Then, he released her.

He left without turning back, and Larisa was left trembling with both anger and fear.

It was difficult to sleep for what remained of that night.

But somehow she woke when the sun greeted her through the chamber window. Larisa yawned, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

And then the lifeless ones of Ser Thane peered up at her from his severed head, which spilled thick, coagulated blood down her mattress and over her own body.

The entirety of the keep at Winterfell heard her terrible scream.

* * *

Jon Snow stared hard at the dull brownish liquid in his mug. Sansa Stark sat down beside him before the fire. Castle Black was a rather bleak and dark place, but she had seen darker.

"Searching for secrets in the ale," she teased. He offered her a wan smile.

"Hasn't failed me yet."

Though really, he didn't drink much. Hadn't had much of the time, as of late.

As of late, he'd been dead.

Somehow he was supposed to believe in fairytales. In _blood magic_ that supposedly brought him back. He didn't know anything for sure. But he was alive, and now he would throw it to chance once again.

"This isn't going to be easy. You know that don't you?"

Sansa looped her arm with his.

"Of course, I know," she said. But neither of them were willing to leave Rickon in the hands of a monster. Now that they knew their brother was alive, Jon could no longer avoid it.

"I believe in us," said Sansa. And Jon nodded.

They had to take back their home.


	3. The King in the North

** Every Loyalty **

**_Chapter III:_ **

**_The King in the North_ **

"He's barely grown enough to squire for you, to speak of fighting!"

Larisa followed Lord Bolton through the main courtyard of Winterfell. Men around her were preparing themselves for war, their armor and weapons strapped before they made their way to the stables.

Ramsay had seen fit to arm Willem as well for the coming battle against Jon Snow and his Wildlings. Likely they were several miles away, but the ground tremored faintly from horses' hooves.

Ramsay walked ahead, largely ignoring her. "I'd love to chat, my lady, but I'm afraid I have a bastard to kill."

"How fitting," Larisa mocked. "They'll call it the Battle of Bastards."

He finally stopped.

So did a few of the men within hearing range. Larisa felt their eyes, and too late did she remember to notice the rotting, bloody severed heads on spikes that stood by the gates. Crows still picked at the remaining flesh.

They were the rest of her traveling party—four knights and two handmaidens, apart from Martha who had been spared. Ser Thane and Ser Thomas were among them.

The sight of it churned her stomach again, along with the gripping fear that rightly chilled her blood when Ramsay turned on his heel.

When he dared to walk towards her though, she recklessly swung her hand at his head. Ramsay caught her before she could make that mistake.

"You are a _fierce_ little lion, I'll give you that." He rotated her wrist again, like he had done days before. Though this time she knew he was considering breaking it, despite his ever-present smile.

"If Lady Bolton is lost to me today, you'll be my consolation prize."

He leaned in close to her neck, until his lips were a ghost's whisper behind her ear.

"And I think we'll have a lot of fun together," he said. "…I know _I_ will."

Then he let go.

Larisa let out a shuddering breath and held her wrist with shaking hands. He tossed her another grin over his shoulder as he joined his men.

"Escort the lady to her chambers."

* * *

She had been an idiot to provoke him. This truly was a monster she was dealing with, one that had likely murdered his own father. Perhaps even his step-mother and her unborn child.

Larisa sat on the edge of her bed and considered her situation for what it was.

Tywin Lannister was dead. Her father, Kevan Lannister, was dead, and Queen Cersei clearly didn't give two shits about Larisa or her brother or who would hold Casterly Rock.

Her name would no longer protect her.

Larisa touched the chain that hung from her neck. Her fingers toyed with the tiny latch on the pendant. She considered her mother's gift, the vial of nightshade inside.

She saw now that it wasn't meant for her enemies.

And _if_ …

If Jon Snow fell to Ramsay Bolton's numbers.

If she were to become that man's bride, she would take the alternative and end it before it began.

But she wouldn't make that choice, not unless her brother was lost to her in the battle to come. If not, she would live. No matter what would come ahead.

Larisa refused to leave her only brother alone in this world. Not with Ramsay Bolton.

She gripped the stone pendant tightly in her trembling hand, until the gold scrollwork cut into her palm and drew blood that fell in small drops to the floor.

And for the first time since she was a child, she prayed to the gods, the Old and the New and whatever would hear her and listen.

" _Please_ ," she whispered. " _Please help me._ "

* * *

Willem had to stand at Ramsay's side and watch when they dragged the boy, Rickon Stark, out of his cell. He looked older than Will, but dirtier and wilder with the threadbare, patchwork clothes he was wearing.

He didn't say a word, not even when they forced him on Ramsay's horse with his hands tied behind his back. Will struggled to stay on his own horse that was much too large for him. Ramsay warned him to stay close, so Will held on as tightly as he could. He didn't want to know what the man would do to him if he fell on accident.

The Bolton army formed ranks once they reached the top of a large, rolling hill that met its end at a rise of old rock and cliffs; Ramsay had told him that the bastard Jon Snow was probably hiding there with his army of savages and traitorous Northern folk. Will could see them now, bunched in front of the tall rocks.

Will stopped his horse at the front lines, close behind Ramsay who by now had let Rickon off of his horse. Ramsay dragged the boy forward by the ropes that bound his wrists together.

In full view of the enemy, about a mile away, he cut those ropes loose with a dagger.

"Do you like games, little man?" Ramsay asked. He grabbed Rickon by the shoulders and pointed ahead, at a man in the far distance. Will thought he was dressed in black.

"Let's play a game," Ramsay continued. "Run to your brother. The sooner you make it to him, the sooner you get to see him again."

Will could tell the older boy was scared; he was breathing heavy, and he was shaking. But he was looking at the man in black who must've been his brother. The man who had to be Jon Snow.

"That's it! That's the game…ready?" Ramsay pushed Rickon forward. " _Go_."

And he walked, slowly at first, until Ramsay knocked the first arrow.

 _Run you idiot!_ Will wanted to shout. His heart was beating too fast, like it was _him_ Ramsay was aiming at.

Rickon finally started running when that first arrow landed mere feet away from him. Jon Snow was riding to meet him, but Ramsay let arrow after arrow loose, each getting closer and closer to their target.

Will held his breath when Rickon was just a few yards off. _He's gunna make it!_

His brother held his hand out, ready to catch Rickon and swing him onto his horse.

Will thought their hands would've touched, if not for the final arrow that imbedded itself through Rickon's neck with a sickening squelch. That sound echoed through the clearing, just before the body fell.

Even this far away, Will could see red-hot fury in Jon Snow's eyes when he looked up at Ramsay. And Ramsay was smiling.

Will was more terrified of that smile than he was of the army that poured out from behind those rocks, but only slightly.

_Lara…_

They really should've never left home.

* * *

Larisa had barely finished beating the man unconscious with the iron candleholder from her nightstand when she realized.

She had to move quickly.

She locked her former guard inside her chambers with his own key, and hastened down the stairs with the hood of her cloak drawn over her head. The halls were mostly empty with the battle raging barely half a mile outside the keep, as it had been for some time.

She could hear the distant clang of swords and screaming when she finally made it to the courtyard. If she was fast enough, she could make it to the stables and—

"Hey! You there!"

Larisa didn't stop, not until the black gates opened and shut behind Lord Bolton and two of his men.

The horses surrounded her. Ramsay got down from his horse all too quickly enough to grab hold of her arm.

"Who let the little lion out of her cage?" he whispered with a grin.

"My lord," said the commander who had ridden in with him. Ramsay glanced back over his shoulder.

"Their army's gone," he said.

" _Our_ army's gone."

Larisa blinked in shock. Had Jon Snow done it? Had he forced the Bolton forces to retreat?

Ramsay rolled his shoulders, but didn't let go though she struggled against his grip. "We have Winterfell. They don't have the men for a siege, all we have to do is wait."

There was a great pounding at the gates.

The remaining archers were at the ready when a large fist busted through the wood. Ramsay handed her off to his commander before he turned away.

"Will you run and hide now, my lord?" Larisa mocked. Ramsay spared her a dark look over his shoulder, and it almost chilled her more than his smile.

A beast broke through those gates. _A giant_ , she thought dizzily, and he only fell when the arrows in his back and chest were innumerable. Wildlings and Northerners poured in behind him, killing off the archers two and three men at a time.

Including the commander, who fell behind her with a heavy thud. She stared at his lifeless eyes, once again haunted by the memory of Ser Thane's.

With a shudder that wracked down her spine, Larisa forced herself to regain her wits. She watched the Boltons be overtaken, thrown from the balconies and slain in the courtyard. Finally, one man in black came barreling through the open gates, covered in blood and holding his sword at the ready. With him was a much larger man with a terrible looking sword.

Larisa turned to make her escape to the stables, but once again a firm hand grabbed her by the arm with a bruising grip and turned her around violently.

"I don't think you understand," Ramsay said, "your position."

In his hands were his bow and arrow, and from this distance he couldn't miss.

Larisa really thought he would gut her, right then and there.

Instead, he tossed her roughly to the side. She fell into the mud with a grunt as the air left her lungs, but she looked back up in time to see the man in black overtake Ramsay. He knocked the bastard down into the mud, like the dog he was, and rained down blows across Ramsay's face until he was bloody and unconscious.

She believed the man only stopped when he noticed Sansa Stark, who had come down from her horse and stood to watch her husband be beaten down to nothing.

He stood, and Larisa realized.

This was Jon Snow.

* * *

"We don't need them," Sansa said to her brother, but it was for all the lords of their sworn houses to hear as Larisa and Willem stood before the recently hailed King of the North and the rightful Lady of Winterfell. Waiting to be judged.

"Cersei only cared about her own children."

Jon Snow turned his head from his sister to the Lannister siblings. He seemed to be waiting on her to offer her own defense, and she took full advantage.

"It's true. She may be our cousin, but she doesn't care for my family," Larisa admitted. She reached to her side and took hold of Willem's hand. He squeezed hers back and trusted her to speak on behalf of both of them, as they'd agreed.

Willem had managed to survive the battle, escaping with only a dreadful cut that started from his hairline, over his eye (nearly blinded), and down his cheek. Several bruises marked him from where horses had nearly trampled him when he had fallen from his, and managed to crawl out from under the pit of clashing swords and men until a knight of the Vale, that had come to Jon Snow's aid, caught Will.

He had marked himself a Lannister as soon as he pled for his and his sister's lives.

They had spent an hour in a cell, separate from the rest of what remained of the Bolton forces, and Larisa had wept from relief while she held him close.

Now, they had been brought to meet the newly hailed King in the North.

"But I know how she thinks," Larisa said. "Of that, I can be of use to you."

"I believe my experience with the queen is more than enough to advise us," Sansa said dryly.

"I came to court at thirteen, years before you arrived at King's Landing, my lady. And if you remember, I was in that holdfast during the siege at Blackwater, same as you. Praying with those pathetic, scared little girls while the queen drank herself into a stupor. Waiting together for either death if Stannis took the capital, or more of the same if he failed."

"Do you have a point, or will this be an ode to our sisterhood at King's Landing?" Sansa's face remained ambivalent, but her words dripped with sarcasm. Larisa finally raised her gaze to the Lady of Winterfell.

It was true, they had only known each other in passing, mostly because her father's mark as a traitor kept her isolated. Larisa remembered well the people who would smile with Sansa Stark to her face, then go on to slander her behind her back.

She remembered Joffrey's cruelty, humiliating the girl before the entire court. Afterwards, for the first time Larisa had found herself wanting to offer Sansa some kindness. To let her know there were those in King's Landing who sympathized…but self-preservation stopped her.

Spies of all kinds lurked in the palace.

"I have endured them all my life. I have seen just how they scheme, and how their friends turn to enemies, destroyed with the slightest misstep. And with all due respect, my lady, I know my cousins. Far better," she said, "than any of you."

Sansa's lips pursed, but she didn't comment further. Jon Snow seemed to take note of it.

"Yes, they're her family," interjected Lyanna Mormont, the Lady of Bear Island. "And she must then be a product of that family."

"Aye, what good will come from keeping Lannisters in the North?" said Lord Robbett Glover. The hall fell silent after his words, and the other lords shifted in their armor as they considered the question.

"My lady," Larisa stilled when Jon Snow addressed her. He was no longer covered in blood, but he still wore dark clothes, and his black hair was tied away from his bearded face.

It suited him.

And he was…older than she expected.

"You claim that you'd break loyalty to your house and pledge allegiance to the North," he said. "But as you said, your family's full of liars."

She bit back a hasty retort. Whatever word he willed, his people would carry it out. He could use that great sword with the direwolf on the pommel, relieve her head from her shoulders before her brother's eyes, and then turn to Willem next. He could send them back to Cersei in pieces, as a message of what he could, and would do to House Lannister.

Even if they spared Will, he would be trained to fight Jon Snow's battles. He would be slaughtered just like Harden at Blackwater. Just like the Freys. Just like Martyn.

Even if _she_ lived, this man, this _King in the North_ could make her a glorified slave—make her pour his wine, serve his food, force her into his bed if he chose.

Larisa nearly shuddered, thinking of how Ramsay Bolton's eyes had raked over her then, his cold, vile hands that had dared to touch her face like he couldn't wait to break it.

She might not be bound anymore. She could hold her head high before these men and Sansa, but she was a Southern girl truly at the mercy of the North.

With that real fear chilling the blood in her veins more than the frigid air already seeping cold into her bones, she took in a small breath and raised her head again. Jon Snow's dark eyes were calm, but he met hers unflinchingly. She knew this man would read her if she tried to appease him, as someone like Lord Baelish would do.

And yes, she had noticed him in command of the Vale as he strode through the gates of Winterfell. He stood and watched the scene from the far corner.

"My father was a Lannister, just as your father was a Stark. I can't forget my name," she began slowly. "But Cersei killed my father, and for all his misguidedness, my older brother too. She will set the world on fire to keep her throne…I would rather see her burnt up."

"Your father gave you to Bolton, didn't he?" Sansa asked. Larisa's jaw clenched.

"He did," she nodded. "When Lord Bolton's wife died so shortly after the Freys, Father faced pressure from Cersei to keep the North under their control."

"By the time I arrived here, Lord Bolton was dead. Ramsay in his place," she added. "If you had not taken Winterfell, I would have been given to that murderous worm."

Sansa's surprise was thinly veiled, before it was quickly swept away with coldness Larisa didn't expect.

"Tywin Lannister orchestrated the Red Wedding, my brother Robb's death. And my mother's," she said, directing it more to the noblemen who nodded and grumbled in agreement. Larisa clenched her hands tighter, her nails digging into the flesh of her palm that didn't hold Will's.

"His grace has just pardoned House Karstark for murdering my younger brother. Martyn," Larisa spoke over the noise, drawing back their attention once more. But it was Jon Snow she addressed.

"He was…he was innocent, barely fourteen." She swallowed past the grief stuck in her throat when she thought of Martyn, who had been so eager to prove himself to their father and uncle. They had armed a boy with a sword and bade him fight for his house.

To this day she thought of how he must have looked, covered in dirt and blood as the Starks' prisoner. How terrified he must have been, to be dragged out in the dead of night by rough hands and be slaughtered alone in the mud, hundreds of miles away from the people who loved him.

"But as you said, your grace," she said to the king. "The price has been paid…would you have my brother and I pay for our uncle's actions? For the crimes of our entire house?"

His dark eyes traveled down to the siblings' joined hands, before they met hers again. They didn't look like the eyes of a cruel man. Not even a dishonest one.

"Not today," he said.


	4. The Lady of Winterfell

** Every Loyalty **

**.**

**_Chapter IV:_ **

**_The Lady of Winterfell_ **

She remembered that last day well.

Before the Leffords of Golden Tooth were to join Tywin Lannister in the fight against Robb Stark, the self-proclaimed King in the North, Larisa organized a feast in honor of her husband's house. Lord Lefford himself was late to arrive, held up by last-minute preparations, but his son Harden was the first to sit with his men near the head of the long table.

It was a grand meal, and no one ate better than her husband, before she made the mistake of pouring his wine too heavily while he laughed.

His soiled trousers was the highlight of the evening for his men, but Larisa steeled herself when his hard gaze caught her and made her resist the urge to go and hide in the kitchens.

"Idiot," he growled through clenched teeth. "Can't even pour a man's drink."

He ignored her apologies. Then he grabbed her when she would've excused herself and got him a rag to mop up the spill. She stood with her eyes cast down, and her hands folded in front of her while the men of House Lefford stared, or smirked, or laughed.

"There's nothing at all in that head of yours, is there?" He leaned back in his chair and looked long at her. "You thought your name alone would buy you a castle on a pile of gold."

Larisa had come to know this much: Harden Lefford was a man that enjoyed being comfortable. Having his cup filled often and surrounding himself with finery made him very comfortable.

Lord Leo Lefford was not such a man, which made life for his son at Golden Tooth distinctly _uncomfortable_. Harden would one day inherit these halls, but he had been aiming for bigger and better things when he first asked his father to make him a match within House Lannister.

"Clearly _you_ thought it would," Larisa remarked, to the amusement of some men in the room. As soon as the words left her mouth she regretted it though, if only to avoid seeing the superior contempt on her husband's face.

"If you were a woman half as beautiful as your famous cousin, you'd be worth something. If you were a woman at all, you'd be worth the time I've spent bedding you for an heir-"

"Perhaps if you were more potent, you would have a son by now," his father drawled.

Larisa raised her head and greeted Lord Lefford, who sat down at the head of the table. He waved off her curtsey and warmly took her hand.

"Sit down, my dear. Enjoy yourself." She sat at the man's left and ignored her husband's stare from across the table.

"It's a damn good spread," Lord Lefford told her, carving well into the roast chicken. She nodded with a small smile.

"Thank you, my lord."

It was the last she spoke to either man that day, and the days to come.

* * *

"Where do you come from?" Sansa asked of Martha. The girl was permitted to sit with her needlework while Larisa was made to stand and brush out Sansa's auburn hair. She glanced over at her former handmaiden with some curiosity. After four years, Larisa knew little more than her name.

"I hadn't thought to ask," she murmured.

"You weren't asked for an opinion, either," Sansa said crisply. She turned to Martha, who gave a meek nod.

"I am from Ashemark, my lady."

Sansa thought for a moment. "House Marbrand?"

Martha inclined her head.

"So you _are_ highborn." Sansa nodded to herself. "I thought so."

Larisa hadn't, but she did now have a vague memory of a Marbrand debt.

She looked over at Martha, with her dark blondish hair in Southern-style braids. She didn't carry herself as a noble lady, but perhaps that was just her quiet nature. Whatever the case, Marbrand was a small, but respected house of the Westerlands, pledged to House Lannister. Which also meant that she would've served Larisa's mother, Lady Dorna, until she came of age. Until Larisa had taken her into service, that is.

"The lord's son is my cousin," Martha admitted.

"Do you want to return there?" Sansa asked. Martha hesitated, and so did Larisa with the comb in her hand.

"There is nothing for me there, my lady."

"Why not?" Sansa asked dryly. "Surely your family will still take you in."

"They would," Martha agreed. "But my betrothed was killed when Cersei destroyed the Sept of Baelor...as long as she rules the south, there will be no peace there."

Sansa seemed to accept this, and then she stood.

"I need something warm to drink then."

Martha nodded, "Yes, my lady."

Sansa took the comb out of Larisa's hands and began braiding her hair herself.

"You can stop that," she said, "and empty my chamber pot."

Larisa did not move.

She understood that Sansa Stark had been through a great deal, but so have most in this country. Larisa refused to kneel like a dog for this girl, younger than her, who once was a selfish, petty child like all that came to King's Landing seeking their fortune.

She might be a Stark, but Larisa still knew who she was.

She was no Lady-in-Waiting.

The corner of Sansa's mouth raised a bit as their eyes met, cool blue against pale green. "If you don't like my brother's little arrangement, I'm sure the kitchens could use someone to scrub the floors."

Larisa remained quiet, biting her tongue, until Sansa sighed impatiently.

"Go on, speak freely."

"With all due respect, _my lady_ , you don't give a shit where my handmaiden was from," Larisa said dryly. "She was given to my family to repay a debt, and would have married my brother Martyn, had he lived. And then to another, had _he_ lived. Just as you would still be married to my cousin the Imp, had he not escaped a beheading."

And what a favor that would have been to Lady Sansa, if Tyrion had paid for Joffrey's murder. The argument could even be made that they were still married by law.

"You're right. I couldn't care less about the sheep who served you," Sansa said. "Except that _your_ family butchered _my_ family, yet here I am. And here _you_ are."

She crossed her arms expectantly. Larisa glanced to the far corner.

Eventually she went to it, and reached down for the chamber pot.

* * *

"I may technically be a knight, but I don't need a squire."

Jon nearly smiled. "Maybe so, but you're the best one for him."

He and Ser Davos Seaworth sat alone in the war council room, planning their next moves to secure Winterfell. There were still areas of the castle left that needed to be rebuilt and the construction was underway, but there was also more than needed to be done before the winter snows started for real.

"It doesn't seem right that an advisor should get a squire before his king," Davos pointedly noted.

"I'm not a knight," Jon said.

Just then, Willem Lannister came in with the midday meal and some ale. He set a plate in front of Jon, who waved it off.

"None for me."

The boy hesitated. He looked confused, unsure of what to do next.

"I'll take some, young man," Davos beckoned him over. Willem filled his cup, and afterwards Davos instructed him to see to the other lords taking their meal in the dining hall. Willem gave a nod and a nervous half-bow in respect, and a lower one to Jon before he slipped out.

Davos turned to the man beside him. Even after such a brief time, he now knew Jon Snow to be a good man. Also somewhat of a dour one.

"Not hungry?"

"I'll go to the kitchens myself, later."

Davos raised a brow.

"If you don't like the lad, why'd you let him stay?" he asked, a knowing gleam in his eye.

"Should I have listened to my sister then?" Jon said dryly. "I won't execute the innocent, even a Lannister."

"Or a young boy?" Davos said. Jon sent him a bit of a glare. There the knight had his proof—Olly's betrayal was still something of a sore spot for his new leader.

One could hardly fault him. But it was interesting, too. Telling of his character.

"It'd be wise to keep an eye on him," Davos said, "but the boy knows what his life would've been like with Ramsay Bolton."

Jon finally looked up from the map of the castle that laid on the table and looked to his advisor.

"A short one," Davos finished. "You did show 'em mercy. And he's grateful, just like the girl. Even if they don't say so."

* * *

That was how Jon found himself wandering, finally by himself, outside the keep. Still within its walls, he could hear the sound of something being struck, over and over. And someone's angry huffs while they were doing it.

He rounded a corner of the castle and saw Willem, repeatedly attacking a straw figure with a wooden stick. There was some form there in his movements, Jon thought, but overall it wasn't much swordsmanship. Surely his nobleman father would've taught him something by now.

 _How old is this kid, exactly?_ he thought.

"Are you supposed to be out here?" Jon asked. The boy jumped at his voice, whirling on Jon with his makeshift weapon. Seeing who was in front of him, Willem dropped his arm quickly and held the stick behind him. He lowered his eyes nervously.

Jon walked over and inspected the deep stab holes in the tightly woven straw—a little impressive, for him not even using a training sword.

"Don't be so focused that you lose your surroundings," he said. The boy nodded, but he stayed quiet.

He still wouldn't look up.

Jon unsheathed his own sword, Longclaw, which finally brought the boy's attention up from the ground. He turned it over and offered it, pommel first.

"Your name's Willem?"

"…Yes, your grace."

Jon allowed him to grab hold of the sword. He fixed Willem's weak grip, instructing him how he should hold a proper weapon. Then he corrected the boy's stance and let him do a couple experimental swings.

"It's heavier than I thought," Willem admitted. He carefully handed back Longclaw.

"One day it'll feel less so, but not by much. A sword should be just heavy enough," Jon said. He signaled to one of the men bringing in wood for construction, Lenan his name was, and asked him to bring back two training swords.

"If you're gunna sneak off and practice, may as well do it right."

Willem ducked his head sheepishly as Lenan returned, handing over the training swords to Jon. He tossed one to Willem before unbuckling his sword sheath for Lenan to hold Longclaw on standby.

He was young, and raw, but Jon thought this boy had the instincts, if not much formal training. All it took were a couple well-placed jabs along with Jon's barked instructions before Willem caught on and corrected his mistakes. Every time he fell back into the dirt and snow, he was back on his feet even faster.

"Are you going to keep letting me knock you over like a toddler?"

Mostly Willem tried in vain to block the sharp thwacks to his midsection, arms and legs, but Jon could see him holding back his wide smile. In it he could see the joy of a boy who was taking a step closer to being what he knew he was meant to be.

It threatened to break Jon's steady frown.

Until he noticed the young woman watching nearby. Her hands were tightly clasped together, her lips pursed, and her narrow gaze watched them both sharply.

 _Ah_ , he thought with a slight smile. The girl who stood alone before the lords of the North with her head high, and demanded them all to listen to her.

And Jon knew now, like he knew then, that it had all been for the boy's sake.

"My lady," he greeted.

Willem frowned and lowered his sword when Jon slowed and lowered his. When he saw his sister, his expression soured.

"What're you doing here?"

"Your grace," Larisa nodded respectfully to Jon, who nodded. Then she turned to her brother.

"Ser Davos has asked for you."

Willem looked to Jon with imploring eyes.

"Best not keep him waiting," Jon said, but his smile let Willem leave them with a small grin on his face.

"You disapprove?" Jon asked, before Larisa could take her leave as well.

She lowered her eyes—it seemed like a practiced move, not _actually_ demure, he thought. "It's not my place to say, your grace."

"If it was?" Jon hedged.

They walked together back to the main courtyard after he took Longclaw back from Lenan. It was busy with men and women preparing for the long winter as well as the evening meal.

"Willem is not meant for war," she said eventually. "He admires the sword because he admired his brother Martyn. And Martyn always loved his cousin, Ser Jaime…he wanted to be a great knight."

"The Kingslayer?" Jon did little to hide his sarcasm. "Your brother had high aspirations."

Larisa looked up then, catching him off guard with the angry flash in her deep green eyes. "As did yours."

They stopped in the middle of the courtyard. Jon bristled at any slight to Robb's memory, but he finally noticed how some of the men had stopped to stare at what must've looked a strange sight: the King of the North and the Lannister woman.

"I'm sorry, your grace." Her gaze fell again. She seemed to realize the same thing he had. "That was thoughtless."

Jon reluctantly shook his head. "As was I."

They parted ways soon after, but all the while he couldn't erase the picture of her burning eyes.

* * *

"You're rather quiet tonight."

Larisa watched her brother, her chin in hand as she watched him plow through pork meat and stew without so much as a glance in her direction. Usually she couldn't get him to shut up about his daily annoyances with Ser Davos, who made him help the man practice his reading.

Now, however, Davos sat to the right of Jon Snow with Lady Sansa, making their table laugh with tales of his smuggling days. He was a good storyteller, and Larisa often hung on his words at mealtimes, even from across the room.

She and her brother sat at the far end of the dining hall, near the kitchens where Larisa would soon have to help clean up the evening meal.

"Those bland onions and potatoes can't be more thrilling than my company," she teased, and prodded at his side. "Out with it, then. Is it because I interrupted your little play fight with the king?"

Will ripped a chunk of pork from the bone and chewed loudly, the way he knew irritated her to no end. She yanked at his ear, making him yelp and slap her hand away.

"Get off!"

"You need to take your duties more seriously, Ser," she reproached. "We are not at home. We are not guests. Jon Snow is _not_ your brother."

Will shot her a hot glare. "You're _not_ Mother, so stop pretending you are!"

Larisa was stunned to silence. Then her temper flared against her will.

"So your clothes wash and mend themselves, do they? That carcass you're devouring, you prepared it yourself?" she challenged. "The bruises Jon Snow gave you, I didn't waste my time crushing leaves for a salve and soothed them for you?"

She scoffed when he didn't answer. "Then I must not be the one who cares for you after all."

Will only grabbed his plate and left her in a petulant huff.

Her appetite gone, Larisa returned to the kitchens.

Martha was there, already scrubbing bowls and scraping off bones from the plates for scraps. She saw Larisa and freed her hands.

"I'll take your dishes, my lady—"

"I am no longer _your lady_ , you idiot," Larisa snapped. "Our Lady _Sansa_ has seen to that."

She dumped her bowls into the large basin and went back the way she came.

She hastened through the dining hall, out to the courtyard where the night was already dark and snow flurried, but Larisa could breathe.

At least, until she nearly stumbled into three northern men. She could place their faces, but not their names. They seemed to recognize her well enough.

"The fuck're you doin' out here," one of them asked.

Larisa meant to move on quickly. "Sorry to have troubled you, my lords. Please excuse me—"

" _Sorry to have troubled you, me lords_ ," he mocked her in a girlish voice. "Lannisters. Always so damn _clever talkin'_."

"Real clever today, sneerin' to Jon Snow about his own brother," the third remarked.

"Half-brother n' all, but still. Mighty disrespectful if you ask me."

"I meant the king no disrespect," Larisa said. She meant it too; offending the king, or these men, was the last thing she aimed to do.

She backed up a step or two, but they matched her. Soon the castle wall was behind her, and a swell of panic began to coil from her belly up into her throat.

"You're a proud little shit, aren't you?"

"Prouder than a man who'd accost a woman in the dark," she mocked.

The moment his arm raised, Larisa couldn't help but shut her eyes.

And then the crunch of boots in the heavy snow reached her ears, along with the men's muttering.

"What the _hell_ are you doing?"

When Larisa next opened her eyes, she hardly believed it.

There stood the Lady of Winterfell.


	5. First it Snows

** Every Loyalty **

.

**_Chapter V:_ **

**_First it Snows_ **

Larisa didn't let herself hesitate.

She knocked on the door. A voice bade her to enter the room, and Lady Sansa was there, writing a letter. She sat at a small round table with two chairs.

Larisa could tell from her expression that she wasn't expecting company, let alone hers.

"What is it?" Sansa said boredly.

 _Charming, as usual_. Larisa nearly rolled her eyes, but managed to keep herself from it.

"My clothes haven't withstood the north very well."

"Not only your clothes," Sansa remarked, without looking up again from the parchment.

She continued to write, while Larisa bit her tongue against a hot retort. By the Gods, she had long ago forced herself to develop a stronghold on her unfortunate temper. But something about Lady Sansa's indifference, arrogance, whatever it was—it grated at Larisa's restraint.

She pulled out the other chair, allowing its legs to scrape loud and annoying against the floor. She sat beside Sansa at the table and ignored her raised brow.

"I'm not accustomed to working with thick furs," Larisa said. She set down the fabrics and sewing materials she had brought with her onto the table. "If it please _you_ , my lady, would you lend some pointers?"

After a moment, Sansa finally looked up at her and smirked the slightest bit. She set aside her stationary and they began.

Over the course of an hour, Sansa gave clear instructions and observed Larisa's stitching. They even sat in silence a while, for once not snarking at each other.

Sansa eventually broke that silence.

"Before you were given to Lord Bolton, you were already married once?"

 _As were you_ , Larisa wanted to fling back. Instead, she told the truth.

"He was not a good man."

Sansa glanced up from their work.

"He was not like Ramsay," Larisa said, "…but he was cruel in other ways."

That fell between them, until Sansa corrected one of her loose stitches and the lesson continued.

"He's dead?" Sansa asked eventually.

"Yes."

"What killed him?"

Larisa considered all the possible answers she could give. There was the obvious truth, the one she'd always used as a protective, and perfectly acceptable screen.

But Larisa was no longer in King's Landing, or Golden Tooth, or Casterly Rock. If she was to survive here, with the Starks, she would have to give something that wasn't resentment, or an obvious default story.

 _A secret_ , Ramsay had said.

He was dead already, she was sure. Jon Snow had likely executed him when she and Will sat in a cell.

"I did," she said. Sansa sat up straight in her chair. Larisa saw the surprise fly across her features, then dim under suspicion.

"Did you?"

"He was with his father, otherwise occupied with the war against your brother when I left Golden Tooth, and returned to King's Landing."

"Why?"

"For Lady Elinor Crakehall…a friend," Larisa said. "She was getting married."

Elinor had always been a small, kind thing, and out of place at King's Landing serving as one of Cersei's many handmaidens.

"She was beautiful. Her new husband ate almond macarons from her hand, it was all very disgusting and lovely," Larisa said. "And then Stannis laid siege to Blackwater, and my lord husband was slain reclaiming the capital with Tywin Lannister."

Sansa didn't hide her sarcasm, "And yet you killed him?"

"I knew he would never last a real battle," Larisa admitted. "All it would take was one moment where his father lost sight of him."

"He would have been at that battle, regardless if you were there or not," Sansa pointed out.

"Don't mistake me," Larisa said. Her voice was steady, but hardly above a whisper. "Even if he had survived that battle…or if it had been Stannis's forces that broke through the doors of the Red Keep and gutted us all, I knew that day I would be free of my husband."

Sansa was quiet. She seemed to be weighing just how much to believe, but Larisa thought she finally decided to just that.

"You like a bit of theater, don't you?" Sansa remarked.

"I never go to the theater," Larisa smiled slyly. "Too many painted whores."

Sansa hummed in response. "And you would have freed yourself of Ramsay as well?"

"One way or another," she promised. Then it was Sansa's turn to give a secret smile.

"What's left of his bones are scattered at the bottom of the Broken Tower." She hesitated then, before she went back to the sewing. "I made sure of it."

Larisa had time to hide her shock. She stared at the girl—the woman next to her. The Lady of Winterfell.

As much as Larisa hated to admit it, Sansa was the reason she hadn't been harmed, in any way, the night before. And any night since the Boltons were defeated.

For once, Larisa swallowed her pride.

"Thank you."

* * *

"That's mine!"

Larisa choked on her laugh, and also the custard tart.

Willem chased her from the kitchens, all the way to the courtyard outside the keep.

"Shouldn't you be practicing your penmanship, _Ser_ ," she teased, and held what remained of her brother's snack out of reach. "You won't _become_ a Ser if you can't write Davos's notes for him."

Will grabbed hold of her arm, but she was just tall enough to keep him at bay.

"Knights don't need to penmanship to fight!" Will argued.

"Reading and writing are just as important as riding and fighting," she told him. "And you won't be doing the latter anytime soon."

She relented and gave him what was left of the tart. He slapped it out of her hand and stomped off in a huff.

"Best check that attitude, little boy," she called after him.

"I'm not little!" he yelled back at her. Larisa laughed as she walked away from the keep.

Sansa had given her no other duties for the afternoon, so she found herself wandering, past the library tower, and the armory. After a moment's hesitation, she entered the tall gates that led her into a small Godswood still encased within Winterfell's walls.

She came to a large pond in the center, and a tall weirwood tree. Its face wept red.

Larisa dusted off the snow before she sat on one of its raised roots. Was it the Old Gods that had heard her prayers? She doubted it was the Seven.

They'd never heard her before. Or maybe they chose not to listen.

"Don't know that I've ever seen a Southerner in these woods."

Larisa jumped at the sound of Jon Snow's voice.

"Sorry," the corner of his mouth raised a little. "Mind if I sit?"

She shook her head. "I should go, your grace."

"You can stay," he said. "Didn't mean to disturb you."

His boots crunched so loudly in the snow that she wondered how she hadn't heard him coming. He sat across from her on the left side of the tree.

He made a distinct-looking figure, with his dark cloak, and the direwolf sigil etched into the fabric across his broad chest. His black hair was tied back, and this close, she could see the faint scar that started above his brow and ended just under his eye. All these things, along with his strangely honorable actions, were only starting to fill in the gaps.

_Dark, enigmatic, brutal, honest, merciful, handsome…_

She forced that last thought away with a small shake of her head.

Who was this Jon Snow?

"I'm sorry," he said eventually, "about my men's behavior. They've been at war a long time. Most northmen are hard, stubborn as hell. But loyal to a fault."

"Yes, I've noticed." Larisa said tersely. Immediately she regretted it.

It didn't matter how justified she felt, or that those men would have done unspeakable things. If she could hold her tongue in Sansa's presence, she should be able to mind herself in front of the one man who had real power over her.

At least for the moment.

"All the same," he said, after shooting her a somewhat amused look. "These walls will be a safe place for you, from now on."

She had heard stories about this man. That since leaving his childhood home to take on the Black, he became the first Lord Commander to ally with Wildlings, and led them over the Wall. She wondered if that other rumor had any merit to it—that he had loved a Wildling girl. And so fell to sympathize with those savages beyond the Wall.

But then again. What was it that Rickon Stark said to her before? About his Wildling friend, Osha, who was probably dead as well. " _She's not so wild_."

And then there was the greater enemy beyond the Wall. The Night King, who supposedly led an army of White Walkers.

While Larisa didn't believe in folktales and myth, there had to be a reason Wildlings were willing to trust a former man of the Night's Watch, let alone fight for him.

"May I ask something?" Larisa said. He nodded.

"You were Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. Why break those oaths?"

"My sister…and my brother," he said, "needed me more."

"I'm genuinely sorry about your brother," she told him. And her words _were_ sincere. It had broken her heart to hear of Rickon's death. She could still see him in her memory, how she wiped the dirt from his grimy face in that terribly dark cell.

"I tried to help him," she admitted. "But I failed."

Jon looked down at his hands resting on his knees. "As did I."

There was such regret there, in his eyes. Will had told her what Ramsay did, how Jon had raced to save the boy. The rage with which he met the Boltons on the battlefield. And she herself _saw_ Jon's fury when he finally got his hands on the man who enslaved his sister, killed his brother.

Larisa had the urge to give him some small comfort; her hand perhaps itched to rest over his. But she didn't dare.

"This was my father's place," he said. "Sitting here…he could just be a man, not a lord. Not a husband or father."

 _Is that why he's here?_ she thought. _To just be a man for a while, and not a lord, or a brother._

Jon was obviously looking for solitude, like she was. And then she realized.

Perhaps he hadn't wanted to be king. But this was his home, and he was honor bound to fight for it. For his father's memory.

"Was he a kind man?" she asked.

"The best I've ever known."

"I didn't know him," she admitted. "Not really. I always imagined he was somewhat like my father."

Jon looked up at her. "I didn't know yours either."

She didn't want to talk about him. But Jon had given her an honest truth, not to mention an honest _apology_ , which she hadn't expected.

"He was stern, and fair," Larisa said at last. "But he idolized Uncle Tywin, and he valued family legacy above anything else."

Jon listened, watched her with his dark eyes. They were brown, she noticed.

"When we left Casterly Rock, I north and he south…I told him he had no daughter." Her hands were shaking. She hid them in her skirts and took in a breath, let it out slowly. "That was the last I ever said to him."

"Maybe he needed to hear it," Jon said. It was the last thing she expected, and she blatantly stared at him.

"Gods know there are things I should've said," he shrugged. "Maybe we would've fought. Maybe I would've learned who my mother was."

Shock stilled her. He didn't know his mother? Had _never_ known her?

Before she could ask about it further, he stood, and propriety made Larisa stand with him. Jon raised a hand to stop her.

"You should get back inside soon," he said. "The winds'll be picking up."

She nodded, but kept her gaze firmly on the ground.

It was starting to snow again, small flurries floating down. But it wasn't yet cold enough that she didn't feel the tears stinging her eyes, sliding down her cheeks. She held a gloved hand over her mouth to swallow the sounds of her idiotic crying.

She was relieved for it though. Finally, she could mourn her father as she should have.

Then she gasped at the hand that fell on her shoulder.

Jon Snow's hesitant, conflicted face was all she could see when she craned her head up. Out of embarrassment, she looked away again.

His hand squeezed her shoulder once, and was gone. She couldn't stop herself from glancing up at his back as he walked away, likely leaving for sure this time.

"Your grace," she called after him.

Jon stopped, and she felt a nervous flutter tying her insides in knots as he turned around.

"Would you send my mother a message?" she asked. "That my brother and I are safe in the north."

Jon seemed thoughtful, until he looked at her again. "How about we go see the maester, and you write her yourself."

* * *

Once again they walked together, this time to the Maester's Tower. The maester that received them looked pleasantly surprised to see Jon.

"I was just about to go to _you_ , your grace. A raven arrived from King's Landing."

Jon unfurled the note. Larisa watched as his expression became more dour the longer he read.

"Your grace?" she asked. His eyes flicked up to hers.

"Come with me to find my sister," he said. Larisa nodded, and she followed him out of the tower back to the main keep, where they soon found Sansa.

Once she and Larisa had both read the message, it became clearer to her why he'd asked her to come along.

Queen Cersei was demanding the North, specifically _Jon Snow_ , to bend the knee. Or else, they were in open rebellion and traitors to the crown.

"You've been so consumed with the enemy to the north, you've forgotten about the south," Sansa said.

"I'm consumed with the Night King because I've seen him," Jon said. "And believe me, you'd think of nothing else if you'd seen him too."

"We still have a wall between us and the Night King, there's nothing between us and Cersei."

"There's a thousand miles between us and Cersei," he said. "Winter is here, the Lannisters are a southern army. They've never ranged this far north."

Jon glanced over at Larisa and she nodded her agreement. The Lannister army was still her uncle's army in most respects, but many of them, like her, had not experienced a true winter. And for those who had, she would guess that it had probably been much too long since to be of any real help to them.

Sansa only spared her short look.

"You're the military man, but I _know_ her," Sansa said. "If you're her enemy, she'll never stop until she's destroyed you. Everyone she's ever crossed, she's found a way to murder."

Larisa lowered her gaze, biting her tongue again. She would have welts by the end of the day, she was sure.

She didn't know that Jon noticed, and then considered his sister.

"You almost sound as if you admire her," he said.

Sansa looked away. "I learned a great deal from her."

Jon shook his head and turned to Larisa.

"You claimed to know Cersei best. What would you tell me?"

She hesitated to answer.

What Jon said before was true. The _Lannister_ army was not suited to fighting in the north. But still…

"If my father hadn't gone to King's Landing to undermine her, perhaps he would still be alive. Distance serves us well for now," she said eventually. "But everything Cersei knows, she's learned from Tywin Lannister."

"Meaning?" Jon asked grimly.

Larisa matched his frown.

"She makes allies, as sure as she makes enemies."

* * *

In King's Landing, Cersei sat upon the Iron Throne.

Jaime Lannister still served as Lord Commander of the Queensgard. He stood to her left. Meanwhile, her slender fingers closed over the arms of her seat.

All these nobles and knights, they were merely an extension of her will.

Now her will was the only one that mattered.

"Send him in," she ordered.

And those golden doors to the throne room slid open to Euron Greyjoy.

The newly crowned King of the Iron Islands, and master of the Iron Fleet.


	6. Eyes to the South

** Every Loyalty **

.

**_Chapter VI:_ **

**_Eyes to the South_ **

Ser Davos's chamber door was left open enough for Jon to see inside. He stopped short of entering the room; for some reason, what he saw allowed himself to smile.

"Is that a, a T or an F?"

Davos pushed a piece of parchment over for Willem to see. He squinted at the writing. "Looks like a B to me."

"Aye, I'm sure it says _Cersei, birsb ob her name, Queen ob the Andals and the Birst Men_."

Will didn't want to laugh, but the man's delivery was admittedly more infectious than his humor. So Will did laugh a little, shaking his head. Then he went back to practicing his own letters.

"All this bullshit fancy calligraphy…" Davos muttered, but he was still smirking. "Think I'll ever be able to write this flowery?"

Will shook his head again. "Even my handwriting's better than yours."

Davos leaned in an took a peek at Will's parchment.

"Not by much."

The boy rolled his eyes.

"Oh! Hello there, your grace."

Jon watched Will's attention perk up when Davos greeted him. He nodded to both of them.

He had come in intending to work on some plans with Davos, but it had finally stopped snowing for a while. Maybe some fresh air was in order.

"How about a ride?" he asked.

* * *

Jon could tell Will had spotted his sister on their way out of the keep, because he was looking firmly in the other direction.

They exchanged polite greetings, and Larisa asked, "Another sparring session?"

"A riding lesson," Davos said. "The weather's more forgiving today."

Larisa was purposeful in catching her brother's eye.

"Listen well," she reminded him. Will didn't answer, only lifted his chin as they moved on.

In that one gesture, Jon could finally see the family resemblance between them. He also got the feeling Larisa hadn't told her brother about the night those men confronted her.

But soon that thought left him as they reached the stables. The smell of horse shit hit them before anything else.

"Ridden a horse before?" Davos asked.

"'Course I have," Will said. But he still looked unsure of where to start when they stopped in front of a brown mare.

Once, a stable boy came with the tack for their three horses, Jon showed Will how to secure the saddle and the stirrups, and for his duties as a squire, how to secure Davos's weapons for him. Finally Jon helped him on the horse, after which it was clear that the boy knew how to ride, at least.

For the first time in months, they exited the gate of Winterfell and started their trek through the large trees that made up the surrounded forest behind the keep, away from the Kingsroad.

Jon looked over at Will, who rode between him and Davos. The boy looked about average size for his age and couldn't be more than nine years old. He was younger than Bran, certainly. Younger than Olly, and even Rickon had been.

He was also a golden-haired Lannister that probably had a rich childhood in his southern house. A house that turned its back on his family.

And Jon couldn't be more irritated, knowing that he already felt responsible for the boy.

"So you want to be a knight?" he asked.

Will nodded. "My brother was going to be one…I think I could be good at it one day too."

"If you work hard enough."

Will smiled in agreement. Then he let out a huff that was visible in the frigid air.

"Lara doesn't get that…I wouldn't learn anything if it were up to her."

"She understands better than you think," Jon said. Davos looked over, his brow raised.

"She doesn't understand anything."

"What makes you say that?" Davos interjected.

"'Cause she talks too much and never listens," Will griped. "And always thinks she's right."

In Jon's mind, he could see that woman as she was—all proud anger and defiance when he spoke about Martyn. And then when they met in the Godswood, she barely let him apologize for his men's behavior.

She was a trueborn lady all right, but she danced along the line of respect and what was acceptable with that temper of hers. Probably too often for her own good.

And Jon couldn't help but smirk at the thought. At least until he noticed Davos glancing at him, vaguely grinning.

"Aye, just about everything you want in a woman," he remarked.

Will made a grimace. Meanwhile Jon frowned at how Davos was still looking at him with amusement, like he had something figured out.

 _Well, he doesn't_ , Jon thought.

"Let's start headin' back."

* * *

When they returned to Winterfell, Davos allowed Willem to join the other children being trained in archery.

Jon had just settled back in his chambers when Maester Wolkan knocked and announced himself. Jon opened the door to him and the maester handed him two raven scrolls.

"One is from the Citadell."

"And the other?" Jon asked.

"From Dragonstone."

Frowning, Jon took that message first, and then the second, from Sam. What he read in both had him on a set path to Davos, then his sister, and then within a few days, his whole house and all his bannermen in the North. He stood before all of them in the great dining hall.

"This message was sent to me by Samwell Tarly," he explained to them. "He was my brother at the Night's Watch. A man I trust as much as anyone in this world. He's discovered proof that Dragonstone sits on a mountain of dragon glass."

Murmurs of interest raised in the hall, and Jon passed Sam's message to Lord Glovett to read. Jon then raised the second message.

"I received this a few days ago, from Dragonstone. It was sent to me by Tyrion Lannister."

The men voiced their wariness at even the mention of another Lannister, as many eyes went to the two already in their midst, sitting with Davos and Sansa. Jon didn't mean to hazard a glance in their direction, but he briefly caught the mild surprise on both of their faces.

"He's now Hand of the Queen to Daenerys Targaryen," Jon said, moving on. "She intends to take the Iron Throne from Cersei Lannister, she has a powerful army at her back, and if this message is to be believed…three dragons."

He quickly moved on past the more alarmed protests in the room. "Lord Tyrion has invited me to Dragonstone to meet with Daenerys…"

He hesitated, just long enough to look back at Sansa and his advisor. They weren't going to like this, but it was the only way forward he could see.

"And I'm going to accept."

* * *

Perhaps he shouldn't have been so caught unawares this time, when it was his turn to be found sitting alone in the Godswood.

"Am I disturbing you, your grace?"

Jon raised his head and quirked a small smile.

"It's only fair," he said. Larisa's mouth quirked upwards. She brushed the snow off a nearby root and sat down.

"So…you've seen him." He met her gaze, curious yet still reserved and somewhat disbelieving. "The Night King."

Jon nodded. "He's coming, and we're not ready."

If they were able to get their hands on that dragon glass and forge weapons out of it, perhaps they'd be able to cut half the wights down to ash. But they needed allies if they were going to meet the Night King's army and not be decimated. Even a Targaryen, with a Dothraki hoard, an army of Unsullied soldiers and three dragons, would make one hell of an ally.

Larisa looked away from him, in a way that told him she was contemplating more than just what was beyond the Wall.

"All of my bannermen, my advisor, and even my sister think I'm a fool to travel south on Tyrion's word," he said.

"It's wise advice," she said.

"But?" he asked knowingly. Larisa hesitated, curling a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Your men see Ned Stark in you," she said. "So when you do what you think is right, they will respect your decisions."

For a moment Jon didn't know what to think, let alone what to say. That was the last thing he expected, really. But he saw her hidden worry, and had a feeling he knew why she was really here.

"I know Will has asked to join you and Ser Davos on your journey south."

Jon let out a breath, preparing for the argument, and the sure headache that was likely to follow. "He's reliable, and a quick learner. He's Davos's squire, and that's his decision."

Larisa nodded. "Then allow me to join you as well."

It threw him so much that he couldn't help but laugh.

"I can cook, wash, mend, pour ale—whatever needs doing," Larisa insisted. "I would be more of use helping you negotiate with Tyrion than I would be here."

Jon shook his head, still amused. "I shouldn't be surprised that you're serious."

Larisa straightened. She frowned and gripped her hands in her lap impatiently. "You knew Tyrion for a short time. I've known him since—"

"Aye, I know exactly who your family is. Cersei already wants my head, I don't mean to get more Lannisters plotting behind my back."

Larisa smiled sharply. "Since we're speaking candidly, your grace. Maybe our position isn't completely ideal, but I thought you made it clear that we weren't your prisoners."

Jon sighed. There wasn't much he could say to that, without provoking her further.

Larisa met his eyes, and hers were still proud and honest.

"I owe you every loyalty, and I meant the oaths I swore," she said. "But Will is the only brother I have left."

Jon leaned back against the trunk of the weirwood tree. He tried to weigh how much he could believe. He _had_ thought, on the whole, he was a good judge of character. But his past experience had taught him to be far less trusting.

Still, he knew that she understood well the risk he was taking, meeting Daenerys, even with Tyrion's word. And Jon also knew there would be consequences if he ordered her to stay behind…and he could admit, to himself at least, he didn't want to be forced to carry out the punishment this time.

"We're at war, and there are no boys in war," he said. "There'll come a time when you can't protect him."

She gave a wry smile.

"Will that be today, your grace?"

* * *

Sansa sighed in exasperation.

"What?" Jon finally snapped. She sat down across from him at the large table covered in maps and letters and things Jon was studying.

"You're following in Robb's footsteps, almost exactly," she told him. Jon leaned back in his chair and let her talk. He had every confidence that she would run Winterfell smoothly while he was gone; she would have a hand in everyone's business.

"She said it herself. She comes from schemers and liars, and she was playing their game just like the rest of them," said Sansa. "Just like she's playing you."

Jon clenched his teeth and shook his head. "Are you going to question me at every turn?"

Sansa softened a little. She lay a hand on his arm and squeezed gently, her gaze imploring him to understand. But the fact was he _did_ understand her point. He just wasn't as stupid as she seemed to think he was.

Sansa shook her head.

"I'm just telling you what it looks like to everyone else."


	7. The Dragon Queen

** Every Loyalty **

.

**_Chapter VII:_ **

**_The Dragon Queen_ **

Larisa wasn't permitted to pack much, but she didn't rightly care. As long as it meant she was leaving the North. That wasn't the primary reason she had negotiated her place on the voyage to Dragonstone though. There were certain aspects of Winterfell she had grown used to, namely boisterous mealtimes listening to Ser Davos's convoluted stories. There were some things she even had come to enjoy, like the vast library tower and the quiet of the Godswood.

She would be grateful to be rid of the cold. But most of all, she would be rid of all the prying eyes that followed her every move in and out of the keep, reminding her every moment of every day that she didn't, and would never belong here.

That was why, when her chamber door opened to the Lady of Winterfell, she had to hide a superior smile knowing that Sansa would have been the first person to try and change Jon Snow's mind. She wouldn't want to lose her favorite servant.

"Good evening, my lady." Larisa gave an informal curtsey.

"So you'll make it to Dragonstone, and then what?" said Sansa. "Are you going to swim the rest of the way to Casterly Rock?"

Larisa raised a brow. "It would be much easier to _ride_ from the east-most part of the continent to the Westerlands, but I take your meaning."

Sansa pursed her lips. "Be careful. You might have my brother fooled, but _I_ know what you are."

"And what am I?" Larisa challenged. Sansa looked down on her with that cold indifference of hers.

"Loyal to no one but yourself."

Larisa had no time to argue further. Sansa breezed past her and left as sure and rigid as she came in. Larisa leaned against her writing desk and sighed.

 _Just when we were starting to get along_ , she thought.

Suddenly feeling stifled in the windowless chamber she had come to call her own, Larisa left and wandered the halls of the keep until she came to the large bridge that overlooked the courtyard below. It snowed lightly, but the wind chilled her down to the bone despite the thick furs she wore.

There was a stillness here that she found unnerving. All the building, training, eating, drinking, fighting and fucking below would continue its cycle for generations. Or it wouldn't; winter would cover this place and had the power to wipe it all away, if it so willed.

"I wondered when our paths would cross."

Startled from her thoughts, Larisa forced her tensed body to relax.

"Too busy stalking Lady Sansa to be bothered with much else, I would think," she said, and turned to Lord Petyr Baelish. "Tell me, what do you intend to gain from whispering in that girl's ear?"

"Lady Sansa is no longer a girl," he replied, with that subtle smile of his that gave away nothing of his thoughts, except for what Larisa knew of him. Not that she had ever crossed him much at King's Landing. But of course, this man's reputation preceded him.

"Of which I'm sure you've taken full advantage." She looked back to the expanse of Winterfell ahead. "Is that why you're still here?"

Baelish gave a more curt smile. "I have pledged for House Stark, same as you."

"An easy decision," she remarked. "Cersei would soon have guessed your hand playing both sides of the chess board. I'm surprised you weren't marked a traitor sooner."

"In that case, we are both traitors, aren't we?" he said. Larisa's lips pursed in annoyance. She had managed to avoid this man for months. Why had he sought her out now?

"And yet you stick out more than I do."

"I wouldn't say that," Baelish cocked his head in mild amusement. "Interesting, that you'll be joining an expedition south. For what purpose, I wonder."

"I would not play your little games here, Lord Baelish," Larisa said, raising her chin. "Jon Snow is neither blind nor stupid."

"No," Baelish agreed, pointedly narrowing his gaze. "He is not."

* * *

She hadn't ridden in ages, but ever since she was a girl she'd loved the freedom of it. Along the grassy plains within the territory of Casterly Rock and in the nearby forests, on horseback she could imagine the faraway lands she knew from the books she read. In a small clearing, she saw the dry deserts of Dorne; in a dawdling stream, the immense Rhoyne River that made up the free city of Volantis.

It was the only time her mother chastised her for impropriety, mostly for the twigs in her hair and the dresses she tore and muddied. Also, because a woman never rode astride rather than sidesaddle, and a true lady had no need to ride at all.

But Winterfell had no litters or caravans, so Larisa was grateful for that one defiance when she and Will set off with Ser Davos and Jon Snow to White Harbor. Once they set sail from the port, however, she was reminded of the fact that though she loved the look of the sea, traveling by ship didn't much agree with her.

She now clung tightly to a wide support beam that held up one of the masts and kept her eyes on the blessedly flat horizon. Her brother, damn him, could sleep through just about anything; Willem was already snoring in their shared cabin below decks, exhausted from the days of riding.

Jon Snow nearly passed her across the deck of the ship, but he paused a moment. She thought he was fighting an amused smile.

"What are you doing?" he asked. She also thought it was rather obvious what the hell she was doing, but she was too drained to say so.

"For the moment, your grace, I'm staying upright."

"Aye, I can see that."

Upon closer scrutiny, she could see that he was a bit pale as well, sweating at the temples.

"Have you sailed very much?" she asked.

"No," he admitted, and leaned against the ship's railing. It looked casual, but she knew then it was for his own support.

"Can't say I've enjoyed it much more than you."

She breathed a laugh and joined him at the railing. "In truth, my head is spinning."

They looked out at the bright sun dyeing the clouded sky in dusk colors as it fell on the dark seas.

"I never cared to be out in the open water," Jon said. "Too unpredictable."

"And ranging the far North wasn't?" she asked. He glanced at her with something that wasn't quite a smile. She was reminded of the rumors she had heard, the Bolton men that had spat his name with the mention of _Wildlings_ never far behind.

More tentatively, she said, "Can I ask you something?"

He sighed. "Go on."

"The Wildlings…they fought for you against the Boltons."

"Is there a question in there somewhere?"

"Why would they?" she finally asked. Jon shot her a knowing look, but he answered her anyway.

"I led them south of the Wall."

Larisa had never spared much thought for Wildlings before, but even she had been taught about the men of the Night's Watch generations of feuding with the savages who raided northern villages, pillaging and burning them to ash. There was only one reason she could think of for a man like Jon to even consider allying with his natural enemy.

"Because of the Night King?" she said. Jon nodded.

"His army of Dead need the dead," he said. "White Walkers don't care if it's Wildlings, northerners or southerners."

Larisa still didn't believe in myth or fairytale, but she couldn't pretend the chill running up her spine wasn't because she didn't believe Jon. Why would he go to Dragonstone otherwise? Why else would he ally with Wildlings?

"They've been cutting down your people for centuries. You could have left them to die," she pointed out. He frowned then.

"Most of them did," he said. "And it only fed the Night King's army."

Larisa discreetly watched him as he stared ahead. Despite the bleak future he implied, she couldn't help but smile a little. Before she retired to her cabin, she said,

"You're a kind man, Jon Snow."

* * *

Their ship anchored a short ways off from the island of Dragonstone. Jon, Davos, the Lannister siblings, and the four Northmen who accompanied on their journey took a small boat to shore. Ser Davos helped Larisa onto the flat beach, while her brother refused any help and nearly tripped himself ambling out of the boat. Davos patiently hefted him up by the back of his collar.

They were received there by a band of warriors (she could tell from the leather tunics they wore and the scythes they carried instead of broadswords, that they must be Dothraki), a woman Larisa didn't recognize, and one man that she did. Her cousin Tyrion.

"The bastard of Winterfell," he greeted Jon.

"The dwarf of Casterly Rock," Jon returned. Then to Larisa's amusement, they both smiled and shook hands amiably.

"I believe we last saw each other at the top of the wall," Tyrion said.

"You were pissin' off the edge if I remember right." Jon likely noticed, as she had, the long scar that traveled from forehead to right cheek across the dwarf's face.

"Picked up some scars along the road," Jon noted.

"It's been a long road. But we're both still here." Tyrion then glanced behind him and finally locked eyes with Larisa, then Willem.

"Cousins, it's been a long time."

"It has," Larisa held Tyrion's hand warmly. "Good to see you in one piece."

He smirked. "It is, isn't it?"

He then turned to Will, who was likely too young to have many memories of the Imp, save for knowing the name and the less than flattering stories that followed.

"We haven't known each other," he said, "but you have the look of a fine young man."

"Thank you, my lord," Will bowed his head slightly in respect, just as Larisa had taught him.

"Come now. We are family," said Tyrion. "No need to be so terribly formal."

They shared a smile. Tyrion then greeted Davos and introduced the woman next to him as Missandei, a trusted advisor to Daenerys. In turn, Missandei welcomed their party to Dragonstone. However, Jon and the men were forced to surrender their weapons before stepping foot into the keep. Larisa could tell that it irked him to hand over his sword to a Dothraki man while the others took possession of their boat, effectively trapping them on the island. It was to be expected, but it still made Larisa nervous as they started up the beach.

"Where are you from? I can't place the accent," Davos asked of Missandei.

"I was born on the island of Naath."

"Ah. I hear it's beautiful down there. Palm trees and butterflies," he said. "Haven't been there myself."

She only smiled and led their way. Davos hung back and fell into step with Jon and Larisa. Davos raised a brow.

"This place's changed."

Larisa smiled a bit, despite her anxiety. She nearly forgot that Davos had spent quite a bit of time in Dragonstone when Stannis Baratheon held it. She had never been here herself, but it was an impressive stronghold, with several rows of steps leading up to the main keep.

She remained quiet while Tyrion spoke to Jon of Sansa, and she even stifled a laugh when he assured Jon (albeit awkwardly) that their sham marriage was left unconsummated.

"At some point I want to hear how a Night's Watch recruit came to be King in the North," Tyrion added.

Larisa could admit, she would hear that story as well. It would be interesting to hear Jon tell it, all the while wondering what he was glossing over or leaving out. He wasn't much for words; she had a feeling there would be many gaps for her to fill with her own imagination.

"As long as you tell me how a Lannister became Hand to Daenerys Targaryen," Jon returned.

Tyrion nodded. "A long and bloody tale. To be honest, I was drunk for most of it."

"That I could believe," Larisa remarked. Tyrion sent her a smirk.

"The rest, you might not."

"My bannermen think I'm a fool for coming here," Jon admitted to him.

"Of course they do," said Tyrion. "If I was your Hand, I would've advised against it. General rule of thumb: Stark men don't fare well when they travel south."

"True. But I'm not a Stark."

Larisa wondered if he really believed that. One could only be told so many times what you were, supposedly, before you eventually accepted it as truth. And yet, though she had never spoken to Ned Stark, she saw his bearing in Jon so clearly.

A tremendous roar sounded above them, and she was pulled out of her thoughts just as sharply as Jon's hands gripping her shoulders and pulling her down to the ground. She looked up to the sky and lost the breath in her lungs.

A dragon flew overhead.

Its wings spanned what seemed an eternity as its shadow passed over them. Larisa grabbed hold of Will, who trembled just as she was to see its massive head and body and tail in the flesh. A dream and a nightmare come to life.

Missandei, the Dothraki, and Tyrion were more or less unfazed.

The dwarf offered Larisa and Will his hands to help them up, and then to Jon.

"I'd say you get used to them, but you never really do," he said. "Come, their mother is waiting for you."

* * *

Soon they were brought before the throne room, another impressive sight cut in sharp, clean lines from stone, the darkness inside tempered with large windows. At the far end of the hall, on a throne carved from that very same stone, sat the silver-haired Targaryen woman.

Missandei rattled off a list of names her queen had acquired through her conquering of slave cities across the Narrow Sea, and with each one Larisa grew more irritated.

When she was done, Jon glanced at Davos, who didn't look as sure of himself as he perhaps ought to have been.

"This is Jon Snow," he said, and after a pregnant pause, "He's King in the North."

Larisa held in a sigh.

"Thank you for traveling so far, my lord," Daenerys replied. "I hope the seas weren't too rough."

"The winds were kind, your grace," Jon said. Though Larisa thought _he_ was the one being kind, too much so, not to correct this would-be queen who failed to call him _your grace_ in kind.

"Apologies," Davos interrupted, "I have a Flea Bottom accent, I know, but Jon Snow is _King_ in the North, your grace. He's not a lord."

"Forgive me—" Daenerys started.

"Your grace," Tyrion said, "This is Ser Davos Seaworth."

"Forgive me, Ser Davos. I never did receive a formal education," she said, "but I could've sworn I read that the last King in the North was Torren Stark, who bent the knee to my ancestor Aegon Targaryen. In exchange for his life, and the lives of the Northmen, Torren Stark swore fealty to House Targaryen in perpetuity. Or do I have my facts wrong?"

"I wasn't there, your grace," Ser Davos replied.

"No, of course not. But still, an oath is an oath. In perpetuity means…what does perpetuity mean, Lord Tyrion?"

"Forever."

"Forever," she agreed. "So I assume, _my lord_ , you're here to bend the knee."

Larisa discreetly looked to Jon for his reaction. He seemed resigned, as he said,

"I am not."

"Oh. Well, that is unfortunate. You've traveled all this way to break faith with House Targaryen?"

Jon, perhaps incredulous at her impetuousness as Larisa was, argued that the Mad King killed his grandfather and uncle in cold blood, would have burned the Seven Kingdoms to ash. But even Daenerys Stormborn could admit her father had been evil.

She only asked that he would not hold her accountable for her father's crimes, and offered what appeared to be a sincere apology on behalf of her house.

And at this Larisa frowned. She knew what his answer would be. He glanced back at her, meeting her gaze for a moment.

"You're right, you're not guilty of your father's crimes," he said, addressing Daenerys. "And I am not beholden to my ancestor's vows."

Slowly the queen's expression fell flat.

"Then why are you here?"

"Because I need your help. And you need mine."

Larisa stood silently while Jon tried to argue their cause, that the coming war from beyond the Wall was bigger than the trifling game against Cersei for the Iron Throne. But Larisa knew from the moment he refused to bow down, that Daenerys would not do so either. He tried to explain the White Walkers, the Night King, but not even Tyrion could hide his blatant disregard for it.

And Daenerys felt he insulted her intelligence to speak of myths becoming real. She stepped down from the throne and the dais to face Jon Snow, until they were mere feet apart.

"The world hadn't seen a dragon in centuries before my children were born," she said. "The Dothraki hadn't crossed the sea, any sea. They did for me. I was born to rule the Seven Kingdoms. _And I will_."

Jon didn't flinch at her hard stare. "You'll be ruling over a graveyard if we don't defeat the Night King."

"The war against my sister has already begun. You can't expect us to hold hostilities and join you in fighting…whatever you saw beyond the Wall," Tyrion said.

"You don't believe him," Davos said. "I understand that. It sounds like nonsense. But if Destiny has brought Daenerys Targaryen back to our shores, it has also made Jon Snow King in the North."

Daenerys pursed her lips, but allowed him to continue.

"You were the first to bring Dothraki to Westeros. He is the first to make allies of Wildlings and Northmen," Davos said. "He was named Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. He was named King in the North. Not because of his birthright, he has no birthright. He's a damn _bastard_. But all those hard sons of bitches chose him as their leader, because they believe in him."

Larisa thought Jon was taking great pains, letting Davos speak so highly on his behalf. She thought he looked uncomfortable with the praise, but knew it was necessary to show this queen that Jon Snow was a worthy ally. And Daenerys, her face was softening somewhat, but still remained calculating.

"All those things you don't believe in, he faced those things. He fought those things for the good of his people," Davos said. "He risked his life for his people, he took a knife in the heart for his people. He gave his own l—"

Jon stopped him with a look, but Larisa already had raised her head sharply.

"If we don't put aside our enmities and band together, we will die," Davos said finally. "And then it doesn't matter whose skeleton sits on the Iron Throne."

"If it doesn't matter then you might as well kneel. Swear your allegiance to Queen Daenerys, help her to defeat my sister and together our armies will protect the North," Tyrion implored. She sent her cousin an unimpressed glance. After all this, he expected Jon to kneel?

"There's no time for that," Jon snapped, clearly irritated. "There's no time for any of this! While we stand here debating—"

"It takes no time to bend the knee," Tyrion pointed out. "Pledge your sword to her cause."

"And why would I do that?" Jon demanded. He turned to Daenerys and said, "I mean no offense, _your grace_ , but I don't know you. As far as I can tell, your claim to the throne rests entirely on your father's name. And my father fought to overthrow the Mad King…the lords of the North placed their trust in me to lead them, and I will continue to do so as well as I can."

"That's fair," Daenerys said eventually. "It's also fair to point out that I'm the rightful queen of the Seven Kingdoms. By declaring yourself king of the northernmost kingdom, you are in open rebellion."

Before tensions could rise any further, Varys the spider entered the hall and spoke in whispering tones to the queen. It seemed urgent, and likely was, as Daenerys's face turned grim. She promised them warm baths and an evening meal.

"Am I your prisoner?" Jon asked. Larisa grasped Will's shoulder.

This was part of the reason she had come. She'd known Tyrion to be clever when he wasn't drunk, but for the most part a kind man; he would not serve someone who was cruel to children. But she couldn't be certain of anything until she saw this Daenerys with her own eyes.

"Not yet," the queen tersely replied.

Larisa steered Will by the shoulder as they followed Jon and Davos out of the hall, allowing the queen to confer with her advisors.

"Our Ironborn and Dornish allies were attacked on route to Dorne," Varys said.

"And?" Daenerys asked.

"Three ships escaped. The rest sunk or captured. Ellaria and the Sandsnakes are dead or captured, the Greyjoys dead, or captured."

"All of them?"

* * *

Larisa swirled the wine in her glass before she took a sweet sip. "She's arrogant."

Tyrion smiled a little. "She's earned the right to be."

"As did our fathers, and look what happened there." Larisa hadn't had good southern wine in some time; the north wasn't made for it, and she had no taste for ale. But she hesitated over another swig of it. "You really did it, didn't you?"

His eyes held a knowing gleam.

"Why cousin, whatever do you mean?"

"They said you killed Uncle, Tyrion."

To her surprise, Tyrion set down his cup. And suddenly he was not the Imp she had known in her childhood, but a matured man who had known real hardship.

"He sentenced me to death for a crime I didn't commit," he confessed. "And he was fucking the woman I loved."

She was lost for words for a moment, stunned at Tywin's capability. Then she shook her head.

"He _was_ a bastard, wasn't he?"

"But I _am_ sorry, for your father and brother," he said. "Although I heard some… _interesting_ rumors about Lancel's venture into piety."

She looked down at her hands.

"You knew, didn't you?" Tyrion asked. Larisa then raised her head, pursing her lips.

"Don't play coy, you know of what I speak," he pressed.

She refused to meet his gaze, but eventually she said, "If he had listened to me, he might still be alive."

"When?"

"After he was injured at the Blackwater," she admitted. "They found him while he convalesced at the sept, and promised his sins would be forgiven."

" _What sins, Lancel? What have you done?" she asked him, begged him to simply tell her the truth before he forsook his own family for whispers in the dark; not even for the true Faith of the Seven, but some off-shoot branch of it._

_It was a while before he confided in her. It was painful for him, perhaps as much as the wound in his chest pained him, but then he did._

" _I served King Robert his wine. That old drunken fool," Lancel croaked. "I served and served. He didn't know it would be his last drink. The last time he humiliated me."_

_Larisa's eyes widened as understanding dawned on her. Her eldest brother had committed treason._

" _And...and I was with the queen."_

" _What do you mean you were **with** the queen? You conspired with her."_

" _Yes…" But his eyes said that was not all._

_For the second time, Larisa came to read his true meaning._

"By the time I knew it, he was already lost," she said. "And yet I couldn't be sorry when he left… What does that make me?"

"Human," Tyrion supplied. She scoffed.

"Perhaps."

"Is it not dangerous for you to call me here?" Tyrion regarded her with some amusement. She nearly rolled her eyes.

"Why cousin, whatever do you mean?" she retorted dryly.

"Surely Jon Snow would be suspicious to hear of a private meeting between Lannisters, considering...your rather delicate position."

"Will he hear of it?" she challenged.

"No," he assured her. "But I admit, I am intrigued."

"Good," she nodded. "Because I have something to ask of you."


	8. A Fool's Errand

** Every Loyalty **

.

**_Chapter VIII:_ **

**_A Fool's Errand_ **

She was losing patience with him, Tyrion was sure. The late hour passed by as the remnants of their conversation fell between them.

_I have something to ask of you._

"Will you try or won't you?" she said, finally.

His brows furrowed. "Why risk making yourself look suspicious for such a simple matter?"

"This is no one's business but my own," Larisa snapped.

She was defensive, Tyrion noted. _Why?_

"I'm only saying, Jon Snow would understand."

"I don't care _what_ he'd understand…only that he need not see any more of my weakness."

He found that interesting, especially that she wasn't meeting his gaze.

"If he has allowed you to come here, I dare say he doesn't think you weak."

She didn't answer him, but he thought her silence was more telling than her heated words.

He left her chamber and started down the halls for his own. Soon the night would be done, and a new and harder day would begin: convincing the Dragon Queen to make an ally of Jon Snow.

* * *

And come the morning, Tyrion was not disappointed. For as long as he'd known Daenerys—which admittedly wasn't very long—she always knew exactly what she wanted. It was part of what made her an effective leader. As a result, she had a penchant for being exceedingly stubborn.

In his mind, his gift of diplomacy (or talking cleverly and often, as he thought of it) did well to smooth the sharp edges of her…more impulsive tendencies.

Or at least, he was trying.

"Dragonglass?" she repeated, unimpressed. They stood across from each other in the war council room, the great table carved with the mapping of Westeros between them; another mark left by her ancestors.

"Yes, volcanic glass. Obsidian," Tyrion said. "He says you have a tremendous amount of it here."

"Why are we talking about glass? We just lost two of our allies!"

Yes, the Ironborn and Dorne were lost to them due to Euron Greyjoy's Iron Fleet. Admittedly, they should have known better than to think he would keep to the Iron Islands. More than likely he would have allied himself with Cersei; she was the only other piece on the playing board strong enough to form a beneficial alliance with.

Even so, Tyrion held to his patience. "Which is why I was speaking with Jon Snow, a potential ally."

Neither of them truly believed in White Walkers and Night Kings, but it was getting harder for Tyrion to doubt Jon Snow's sincerity. Daenerys too, seemed to at least consider it, after he pointed out that the King in the North would have been advised at all fronts not to come to Dragonstone. Yet here he was.

And she agreed, the Dragonglass was no concern of hers. And at the very least he would be preoccupied with mining it from the rock while they saw to the Unsullied heading to take Casterly Rock.

"And what was that Ser Davos said?" she asked. "About him taking a knife for his people. Did you notice that?"

"You must allow them their flights of fancy," Tyrion said. "It's dreary in the North."

She raised a brow. "And yet southerners have allied themselves with him. The boy, and that woman. Your kin?"

"Yes. I'll explain," he nodded. Though he paused a moment, wondering how much of the tale his cousin told him would be of interest to his queen.

"No, too much," he shook his head. "I'll sum up."

* * *

Jon's back hit the jagged wall of the cave. He wiped the sweat from his brow as he regained his breath.

Mining the black, unforgiving stone for the past few days had proved trying. But true to her word, Daenerys had provided them with the tools and enough Dothraki men to make the process easier than it would have been with only six men and a child.

"Your grace."

Larisa offered him a wineskin. He took it, knowing it was filled with water.

"Thank you," he replied after he took a long drink. There was another flask for wine, and it sat on a cart where both Larisa and Will were polishing the pieces of Dragonglass. Already they had filled several carts, and going deeper into the ancient mine only led them to more caves filled with what they needed to arm themselves against the Night King.

But for right now, Jon felt he had to focus on what was in front of him. Not on all the things that would come later. Hopefully much later.

" _Fuck me with a rusty spike!_ "

Jon looked over as Davos dropped his axe with a loud clang. The knight bowed low over his left hand and uttered a string of curses that managed to tug a grin onto Jon's face. He was surprised to hear Larisa snort a laugh.

His grin deepened a little, to see the lady then try to smother it from embarrassment.

"I'd thought I heard every oath imaginable on the Watch," he said.

"You hadn't yet met a smuggler from Fleabottom," she countered with a more restrained smile. But even in the dim cave, he could tell her eyes were laughing.

Looking over her head, he saw another cart being wheeled toward them.

"Watch out," Jon pulled her towards him against the wall as the Dothraki passed with the large haul of Dragonglass. He didn't like the way some of their eyes dragged across the lady as they passed.

"A bit dangerous down here," Larisa remarked lightly. Her face, hands, and clothes were smudged gray and black with rock dust. Her hair, braided and piled on her head as usual, was beginning to fall in places. Loose strands fell about her face. She looked tired.

"You've done good work," he said. "I can have Davos escort you back to the keep."

She smiled slightly, but shook her head. "I didn't come here to rest."

"Your grace," said Caleb, one of his men, who came with a lit torch in hand. "We found something…you should see this."

With a glance to the woman at his side, he nodded. "Show me."

Caleb led them deeper within the mountain, through a twist of caves that grew narrower and more steep. When it became harder to be sure of one's footing, Jon braced one hand on the wall and offered Larisa his other hand. She hesitated, but eventually she took it, allowing him to lead her through a narrow opening. It widened again into a larger place, where this particular cave seemed to end.

Caleb and his crew of men had already left torches here, but he brought his own close against the far wall, illuminating on small cave drawings etched into the rock. Jon couldn't mask his shock at what he saw; the carvings went across the entire wall, up and up until he was forced to crane his neck.

"Bring Ser Davos here, Caleb."

The man nodded and was off, but Jon watched Larisa, who was already tracing the lines of what looked like a sun on the wall. Though to be fair, it could just have been a circle within a circle. There were several variations of it-circular symbols and spirals, half-moons.

"Who made these?" she asked. Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. Jon picked up a torch from the ground, still lit, and held it near more of the wall. He waved her over when he found a drawing of figures who looked like men, holding spears and weapons, and others, who he could only guess from the stories he'd heard Old Nan tell when he was a child.

"The Children of the Forest," he said.

"They were real," she breathed. "All those things…they were always real."

Larisa reached out with her hand again, as if touching the edges of those lines could bring the creatures who drew them back to life.

"It's one thing, to recreate those old stories in your mind. To think there must be some truth in there somewhere—someplace where a version of it must have existed for the myth to live so long," she said. "This is…something else."

"Aye," Jon nodded. The dark coal that stained her face, it didn't take away from what he saw in the firelight.

For her sharp tongue, she had soft features. Softer hands, and more curves than he was used to.

She wasn't a golden-haired Lannister, but still pretty. Beautiful even. And stubborn, used to getting her way. Just so, Jon wondered just what it would take to satisfy a highborn Lannister woman.

He knew she was married before. Sansa had told him things…things he hadn't particularly cared or wanted to know. But a proper Southern lord hadn't been enough for this woman. What should she think of a bastard from the North? Even one with a famous father and a hoard of Northerners calling him king.

But there was no point in that kind of thinking anyway. If Sansa was right about one thing, it would do him no good to even consider...getting _involved_ with the woman under his charge, any more than he already had.

So Jon wandered, following the wall with the torch, more and more. Until Larisa's gasp stopped him. They both stared hard at what she found.

"Is that…"

"Aye."

If the Children of the Forest had made these drawings, then they were likely some of the first to encounter White Walkers. Their eyes somehow shone blue in the rock, like dark sapphires, and the crowned Night King was unmistakable.

"The queen needs to see this," Jon said.

"Aye," said Davos. He stood behind them with Will, the rest of their men, and even a few Dothraki. "She does."

* * *

Jon lead Daenerys to that place and watched more of the same wonder cross her features, but she wouldn't be swayed. He knew then that he wouldn't get the queen's help until he swore fealty to her.

It proved that for all her knowledge of history, regardless of who was at fault Daenerys hadn't spent even a year of her life in Westeros. She didn't understand just how laughable it would be if Jon returned to Winterfell and told the lords of the North that he'd bent the knee to another Southern ruler, let alone a Targaryen woman.

When they were out of the cave and on the beach, rejoining Davos and Missandei, they were met with worse news. According to Tyrion and Varys, the Unsullied Army was able to take an empty Casterly Rock, while Jaime led his army to take the Reach. Olenna Tyrell was dead, and the wheat and livestock that the Reach would have supplied Daenerys's armies was lost.

Jon and Davos ventured back up to the castle, walking up the rows and rows of stairs under a warm, cloudless sky.

"What do you think of her?"

"Who?" Jon asked.

Davos sighed patiently. "I believe you know of whom I speak."

Jon shook his head. The queen had been angry enough to consider taking her dragons and razing King's Landing directly, until she surprised him by asking his opinion. Asking _him_ what she should do. All he could offer was his honesty.

" _If you use them to melt castles and burn cities, you're not different. You're just more of the same."_

The anger had calmed from her eyes then. She might be stubborn and ill-tempered at times, but…

"I think she has a good heart."

"A good heart?" Davos echoed. "I've noticed you starin' at her good heart, when you're not escortin' our own good lass in the caves by firelight."

He regarded Jon with a wry grin.

"Ah, to be young and surrounded by opportunity."

Jon shot him a look. "There's no time for that...I saw the Night King, Davos. I looked into his eyes. How many men do we have in the North to fight him, ten thousand? Less?"

"Fewer."

"What?"

* * *

Larisa heard the bell toll in alarm. From the courtyard at the castle she could see a ship drawing near the beach. It had dark sails, but she couldn't make out the sigil. She could also see Ser Davos and Jon on the stairs leading up to the keep, heading back down them with Missandei, and she decided to head down herself.

By the time she reached the shore, it was to see Jon grabbing a young man by his coat.

"What you did for her," he growled, "is the only reason I'm not killing you."

Jon released him, and while Davos questioned the man about his uncle, Euron Greyjoy, Larisa realized this must be Theon Greyjoy—the one who betrayed Robb Stark and burned Winterfell. Who claimed he had burned Bran and Rickon Stark.

She had seen Jon's fury before, when he'd beat Ramsay Bolton just shy of death. To see a glimpse of it again was slightly frightening, considering it went against every other interaction she'd ever had with the man.

She could almost still feel the warmth of his hand from earlier that afternoon, when he'd lead her through the darkness.

"We thought you were dead," said Davos, disrupting her thoughts.

"I should be," Theon replied.

"Your sister?"

"Euron has her," he said, the weight of guilt in his eyes. "I came to ask the queen to help me get her back."

"The queen is gone," Jon told him.

"Where did she go?"

"To Highgarden," Davos said, "to reclaim the Reach."

But it didn't take long for Daenerys to return. Within days, she and her dragons were landing back at Dragonstone. Larisa could see them from a window in the dining hall. Not long after her was Tyrion, with the rest of the Unsullied.

That evening he came to her again.

"They evacuated Casterly Rock in preparation for our attack," he told her. "But she could have fled long before that."

"Where else could she go?" Larisa asked.

"To Cornfield, for one. The seat of House Swyft," Tyrion gave her a dry look. "Surely you've been there."

"Not since I was a child." Larisa huffed in aggravation and leaned back in her chair. "Can't you find out for sure?"

Her cousin hesitated. Perhaps she understood his reluctance, but she could no longer hold her tongue or her patience.

"Look here, I know we might as well be strangers. But I can see you're not the drunken, self-pitying lout they all said you were. I think you're a good man, and like it or not, we _are_ kin. So what will you do?"

Tyrion seemed to weigh her words. Eventually he smiled.

"Tis a pity we didn't associate sooner, cousin. I'll wager you were a sight to behold at court."

She couldn't quite return a smile. "I only want to know my mother is safe."

He raised a brow.

"And then?"

* * *

Arya was alive. Bran was alive.

And the Night King was marching for the Wall.

Joy and frustration, longing for home and fear for the future warred for dominance within him as he stalked out of the council room. Three of his siblings were at Winterfell, and they would have to face the Army of the Dead without him if he didn't leave _now_.

He was still skeptical of Tyrion's plan to persuade Cersei to suspend the fighting, but it was the only plan Danaerys would agree to. He was more reluctant allowing Davos to risk his life smuggling the dwarf into King's Landing, but Tyrion seemed confident Jaime would listen to him.

Even so, Jon risked her anger to declare his leaving for the North, and he didn't regret it. He couldn't sit idly on this island anymore.

"Why should you want to go?"

Jon's attention perked up at the familiar voice that carried from down the hall.

"I'm supposed to go where he goes."

Despite himself, curiosity had Jon following it into a small inner courtyard. There Willem practiced his swings with a sparring sword while his sister lounged on a stone bench, her nose in a book. Her dress left her shoulders bare to make up for the day's heat. But a shawl fell across them, and down her arms to nearly brush the floor.

"Not there," she said crisply. "You'd only slow him down anyway."

Will's grip tightened on the hilt of the sword as he pointed it at her. "How the hell would _you_ know?"

Larisa barely gave him a glance.

"Yes, do threaten me with your little wooden stick."

"I swore an oath too!" Will let his arm fall, but there was no mistaking the resentment in his eyes. "I should be there to help Ser Davos if something goes wrong."

Finally Larisa snapped her book shut and glared at him.

"If something goes wrong," she repeated. "In King's Landing, where any half-wit City Watchman would recognize your idiotic blonde head? Do you think _Cersei_ will kiss your cheek and seat you at her table?"

Will ignored her with a huff, tossing his sword on the ground and stomping gracelessly out of the courtyard. Larisa turned her head to watch him go, frowning with annoyance.

Then she noticed Jon leaning against the wall, forcing him (with only a little embarrassment) out of the shadows. She stood to greet him and offered a short nod in respect, but all the while he knew she was daring him to comment on what he saw. By the way she looked at him, maybe she was expecting him to say something snide. The truth was, even if he wanted to provoke her, he didn't have the energy.

"He'll understand when real trouble bites him in the arse," he said. She seemed to relax somewhat, held her hands in front of her.

"That's what I fear."

He nodded. On that front, Jon had always understood the loyalty she had for her family. The desire to protect, regardless of what would come afterwards.

"Will you really go over the Wall?" she asked.

"Looks like I have to." He watched her mouth tighten as she turned her gaze to the island's shore below.

Jon knew that look well by now.

"You disagree," he said wryly. "That's surprising."

Larisa raised her chin, but her mouth curved up at the corners too.

"I wouldn't presume to—"

"Aye," he interrupted, and started drawing near her almost without realizing. "I think you would."

Her face was bright with the setting sun behind her, blazing the bit of auburn in her dark hair. She seemed to search for something in him, all the while hesitating, holding back whatever it was. He waited, daring _her_ this time.

"Don't go," she said at last, shaking her head. "Don't barter with your life to try and reason with Cersei…it's a fool's errand."

"Maybe," he allowed. "But for the sake of my people, I have to try."

"And what will _your people_ do if the Night King butchers you?"

So she did believe him, he thought. He was hard-pressed to think she truly cared about his life, though. It wasn't as if she'd had much choice in swearing for his house.

And if given the chance to return to her home, Jon knew what choice she would make.

"I should think you'd be relieved," he said, somewhat dryly.

She quirked her head incredulously at him. "Should I?"

He ignored her though, continuing as the space between them lessened.

"But you're hardly qualified to tell me what I should do."

Her green eyes burned his again, angry and defiant.

"Don't you patronize me, _your grace_ ," she hissed, mere inches from his face. "You may be King in the North, but these are southern waters you're treading."

His temper spiking, Jon did the first thing he could think to do.

He hooked a hand around her waist and pulled her close, raising a brow when she gasped.

"The hell are you doing—"

He pivoted on his heel and brought her against the wall behind him, pinning her there with his arm, if not his body. She pushed against his chest with both hands, glaring at him fiercely. Not with hate, he recognized, but with something else that brought fire to his blood.

"I wouldn't dream of it, _my lady_."

Larisa held his gaze as stubbornly as she held him at bay with her palms warm against his chest.

"When Ser Davos returns, you will go to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea?" she whispered coarsely. He was tempted to stop her lips, if only to prevent her from arguing with him again for just a moment. But he also wanted to see her, hair unbound and wrapped around his fingers, and wilder still.

"Aye. The Free Folk will help us find a wight to bring Cersei."

"You don't need my brother for this expedition," she asserted.

"He will come with us to Eastwatch, but he'll stay at the Wall with Davos. You'll stay here and—"

"I will not," she said. Her fingers curled just slightly into the leather of his coat. "If I have come this far, I won't be left behind."

Jon looked down at her and couldn't help his amusement. Gods help the man who bedded this woman.

With more difficulty than expected, he stepped away from her, allowing both of them to breathe again.

"Fine."


	9. Eastwatch-by-the-Sea

** Every Loyalty **

.

**_Chapter IX:_ **

**_Eastwatch-by-the-Sea_ **

Jon Snow had made a fool of her in that courtyard, but it reminded her that no matter how allowing he'd been with her so far, he was still a man who wouldn't tolerate challenge from a woman.

Larisa had mostly managed to avoid him throughout the voyage north, and she got the feeling he was respecting her desired distance. Willem continued to pester him with questions about his time on the Wall, and of the difference between wights and White Walkers—a trifling detail Larisa had little interest in, save that the mere idea of those things being real were beginning to take its toll in her dreams.

And now they were aiming to capture one.

Their ship arrived at Eastwatch with Ser Jorah Mormont, a follower of Daenerys, and Gendry, a bastard son of Robert Baratheon's that Ser Davos had befriended and found again in Fleabottom; he'd decided to join their cause, and Jon Snow.

Now the men and her brother sat in the common hall with a large man (one of the largest she'd ever seen, besides the Mountain). She soon recognized him as the red-haired Wildling leader who helped Jon take Winterfell back from Ramsay Bolton. Tormund, she'd heard him called.

"Isn't it your job to talk him out of stupid fucking ideas like this?" the Wildling grumbled.

Larisa was trying to set a pot of water to boil in the kitchens so she could devise a stew; they'd brought plenty of provisions from Dragonstone. But she could hear the talk clear enough from the next room over.

"I've been failing at that job of late," Davos said, resigned.

"How many queens are there now?"

"Two," Jon replied.

"And you need to convince the one with the dragons, or the one who fucks her brother?"

Larisa nearly snorted at the man's candor.

"…Both."

"You _really_ want to go out there…again?" Tormund asked.

Larisa set down the knife she was cutting vegetables with. _So Jon's not the only one to have fought…those things_.

That thought eased her mind, if only slightly. Until the Wildling spoke again.

"You're not the only ones," he said. Larisa peeked out behind the door and saw them get up from the table. Tormund led them down a dark corridor, and she followed a good way behind.

They went into a dank room with several barred cells, a small prison. "My scouts found them a mile south of the Wall," Tormund explained. "Said they were on their way here."

"You're the Hound. I saw you once at Winterfell," she heard Jon say. And she chanced leaning in the doorway, just enough to see inside the cell. There were only three: the Hound Sandor Clegane, a man who wore a patch over one eye, and a surly third who had the look of a drunk only momentarily sober. They all looked like outlaws and thieves.

"They want to go beyond the Wall too," the Wildling said.

"We don't _want_ to go beyond the Wall, we have to," said the one who wore a patch.

"Don't trust him," Gendry said. "Don't trust any of them. They're the Brotherhood, and the last thing their lord told them to do was sell me to a Red Witch to be murdered!"

"Ser Jorah Mormont," said the third, leaning forward in his seat. "I hardly recognized you. They won't give me anything to drink down here, haven't been feeling like myself."

"You're a fucking Mormont?" Tormund sneered. "Of the last Lord Commander?"

"He was my father," Jorah replied tightly.

"He hunted us like _animals_."

"You returned the favor, as I recall."

She watched silently as the men on both sides of those bars traded barbs with one another, all of them shifting back and forth with hands on hilts and tense posturing.

 _These are dangerous men_ , she thought. And she didn't feel safe among any of them, save the ones she knew.

Not that she'd come here to feel safe.

* * *

"Thank you kindly, lass."

Davos took the bowl of stew she offered gratefully. She knew Jon had been watching her as she served him. It made her spine prickle uncomfortably while she kept her attention on the task at hand. Ser Jorah and Gendry were polite enough, while Tormund and the men of the Brotherhood acknowledged her with mild curiosity; save for Clegane, who was more interested by the sight of food.

Willem pulled a face as he chewed. Uncertainty pricked at her then, wondering if she'd done something wrong to the meat.

"What're you scowling at?" she asked tersely.

Will grimaced. "What did you do to it?"

Larisa looked across the table to Davos, who was oddly silent, and Gendry, who did little to hide his reaction. Jon and Ser Jorah were perhaps better at keeping their expressions deceptively neutral, but she had a sinking feeling in her stomach.

It couldn't possibly be as bad as all that, though. She picked up a spoon and hesitantly tasted the broth.

And she nearly choked on it.

 _Bloody perfect_ , she wanted to sigh as deep embarrassment heated her face and neck, and she set the spoon back on the table before wiping her mouth on her apron.

"I'm…sorry," she said. "It seems my culinary efforts—"

"If that's what y' fuckin' call it," muttered Clegane. Beric Dondarrion, the man who wore a patch over his eye, sent him a sharp look behind her back.

"—still have much to be desired," she finished, dropping her gaze to her folded hands. Larisa spent her childhood learning from her mother what was required of the lady of a house, and she'd spent the better part of three years putting those lessons into practice at Golden Tooth.

Unfortunately, it entailed a lot of delegating. The truth was she'd known very little of menial work until she was forced to serve Sansa.

Tormund leaned towards her with a conspiring grin. "Guess you never had pig anus."

"E-Excuse me?" she stuttered, indignant. Davos shook his head as Jon gave the Wildling a warning glance.

"When you're freezing your balls off and close to starving, you gotta get creative," said Tormund. He raised the bowl to his lips and drank the rest of the broth down.

"Not enough meat, but it don't taste like a pig's shithole."

Perhaps months ago she would have been more offended by a Wildling's presence, let alone his crudeness. But after close to six months of travel among men, on land and at sea, Larisa settled on nodding, smiling a bit to herself in amusement.

And the meal went on, until the pot was empty and the bread on the tables were gone.

Larisa later stood with Will and Davos on the Wall, and watched Jon Snow march with those men out through the other side, into the wind and snow.

"Don't worry," Davos said. "He's come back from worse."

Larisa only pulled her coat tighter to herself and returned to the keep.

* * *

Eastwatch was smaller than Castle Black, according to Davos. But it still afforded a maester's study, where Larisa spent most of her time puttering about the old books left to rot. The Wildlings occupying the keep obviously weren't using them, but to be fair, much of the stock consisted of records, and most of it inane.

But eventually she came across one dusty tome on herbology for healing, among other practices. It was detailed as it was advanced, and somewhat hard to read, but it gave her something practical to think about. Maybe it would make her more useful than a scullery maid.

She decided to keep the book for herself, often writing small notes in the margins to remind herself of the herbs' uses.

That night, when she thought the frigid cold would eat her alive, she drew herself up a steaming bath. Desperately, she missed summers at Casterly Rock, the warm beaches there. She missed the view of the ocean from her chamber window, and her garden that bloomed wonderfully with wildflowers.

She missed her mother's soft singing voice, which had often filled the halls. Larisa still remembered the songs that lulled her to sleep as a child. She even missed her father, and Lancel, before the war when their brother Martyn still lived, and her family was still a family. She knew she would never have that life again, even if she were to return home…

And against her will, she thought of Jon Snow, out in the middle of that seemingly never-ending expanse of ice and mountain range. Her rational mind knew those men might not come back alive. _He_ might not.

But…she wanted him to.

She wanted him to. He was a good leader, and a good man, no matter what doubts he had of her. He'd made that very clear at Dragonstone.

" _And what will your **people** do if the Night King butchers you?"_

" _I should think you'd be relieved."_

And still…still she couldn't forget the memory of his strong hand gently holding hers in the dark. Or pressing her against the wall along with his body.

She lowered her own farther into the scalding bathwater.

If she closed her eyes she could feel it now, the back of that hand brushing her cheek. It traveled the length of her neck, and between the valley of her breasts to graze them. Those fingers would slide down her slick skin, past her navel, and down below the water.

Larisa's own fingers dipped inside, relieving the need she felt like a dull throb. But there the daydream became hazy enough that she couldn't bring herself to finish.

It felt wrong, somehow, to imagine him touching her.

He wasn't hers, and would never be. Nor should she want him…a man, and for now a king, she reminded herself. A man who would never make a wife of a widow.

* * *

Larisa was in the kitchens preparing the midday meal when her brother burst in, claiming that Davos needed her help.

She hurried to the sleeping quarters where Davos and Tormund's Wildlings had set down poor Gendry, who looked frozen solid. Icicles were only now melting from his beard; his hair dripped into his eyes and he shook like mad while Davos heaped blankets on him.

"What happened?" she demanded.

"They were surrounded," Davos answered for Gendry, who at the moment was hardly conscious.

"By wights?" Davos nodded affirmatively. Larisa's lips pursed as she looked down at Gendry. "And how did _he_ escape alone?"

"Jon sent him back here so we could get a message to Daenerys. The raven's likely already on its way."

Despite any lingering misgivings, Larisa stayed with Gendry that night. She applied cloth soaked in hot water to his chest and forehead until he at last stopped shivering. By morning he had regained a bit of color to his pale skin, and Larisa felt it safe to let him sleep in peace.

She climbed the stairs that led up to the top of the Wall, where Davos stood with the Wildlings watching the ground below from their posts.

"Have you eaten?" she asked him. The man glanced back at her briefly.

"Have you slept?" he returned. She gave a wan smile. The truth was she felt her weariness in her bones almost as powerfully as the bitter cold, but the worry that roiled in her chest would hardly let her sleep now.

And that hardly changed when two of Daenerys's dragons roared in approach, flying down from the skies and over the Wall to land at the base of Eastwatch. From their vantage point, Larisa could see the silver-haired Dragon Queen, and a few of the men that had set out the morning before—at least, all of the ones she knew by name. Save for one.

When they too reached Daenerys on the ground, Davos wasted little time in pleasantries.

"Where's Jon?"

Larisa watched the queen's face, which did little to hide her regret, and grief that made her blue eyes look sunken.

"He fell," she said.

"Where?" Larisa pressed. She had never addressed the other woman directly before, and certainly not _so_ pointedly.

Daenerys straightened, if only somewhat, and she answered, "A frozen lake, surrounded by…those things."

"Did he surface? Did you see him?" Davos asked. She was silent for too long.

"I don't know," she said.

"And you left him?" Larisa said. Daenerys met her gaze then, held it sharply, if not with much heat.

"I had no choice."

Jon could no longer feel his face or his limbs, even though he knew that his left arm once blazed with pain. He hardly had the strength to hold onto the large horse that carried him swiftly through the snow, over rolling hills and the barren expanse of the far North. Not that he could see it; he'd been in and out of conscious for the past several hours.

Seldom few thoughts were able to take root in his mind either, besides the memory of Uncle Benjen's face, oddly pale and sad. But he'd been ready to face that hoard of wights that surrounded him on all sides. Ready to die.

Jon felt he was ready to die as well. He'd more than done his part, and if this was where his second life ended…

When he was able to open his eyes again, it was to a hazy view of Tormund and Davos, carrying him inside the belly of a large ship. His ship.

He hadn't the strength to move an inch of his body, but he felt the thick furs that piled on top of him. His eyes were getting heavy again as some prickling warmth started to thaw his skin.

And then there wasn't Tormund, or Davos, or anything at all.

* * *

Eastwatch and the Wildlings became a fading memory behind them when their ship began to set sail for King's Landing. Once again, Larisa found herself sitting at a frozen man's bedside, this time trying with all her might not to become ill herself.

Ships rocked far worse belowdecks it seemed, but it couldn't be helped. She sighed, staring down at him with a dark frown.

It was just like this man to create such a fuss.

Her gaze traveled from his face, down over the thick blankets that she now knew covered a series of dreadful scars.

_Davos helped her dress the few cuts she found, with the help of the herbs she'd read about in that dusty old book. The herbs she'd found in a hidden store in the maester's chamber, but she hardly knew if what she was doing was right; there was a less than subtle difference in reading about something and trying it out on a living person._

" _His shoulder is so heavily bruised," she prodded gently at the purplish skin there. "Should I bandage it?"_

" _No need, I think. Nothing appears to be broken," said Davos. "Best just to let him rest."_

_Larisa couldn't help but hesitate, the tips of her fingers ghosting over the terrible marks that marred the man's chest and abdomen. She stopped at the one over his heart._

" _These were not shallow wounds," she said softly. She finally looked up at Davos in horror._

" _Who…what did this to him?"_

_Davos's eyes shifted away from her, nervously, and in that moment Larisa knew he was keeping a grave secret. And he had been, for a long while._

_Larisa locked her gaze with his, refusing to let him lie to her. "Tell me."_

The sound of his shallow breathing roused her from those thoughts. Larisa sat up in the hard, wooden chair that had been carving notches in her spine, and she took the lukewarm cloth from his now damp forehead.

"Lara." Jon's voice was coarse with disuse, his eyes dark with confusion and pain. She sat on the edge of his bed and tried to smile as she swallowed past the lump forming in her throat.

"We're heading south now, to the capital," she told him. "Tormund will stay at Eastwatch, but we have the wight. You were successful."

She didn't think he entirely understood her. He still looked unfocused, not altogether present of mind.

"How do you feel?" she asked tentatively.

Jon shook his head. "I saw…Benjen...Uncle Benjen. He was alive."

Larisa briefly held the back of her hand to his cheek, and found it overly warm. Likely he was fevered, disoriented. She shushed him gently, blinking back the tears welling up. All the while she inwardly scolded herself for it; the man was, and would be just fine. There was no need for her to lose control of herself so easily.

"Don't move so much," she stopped his attempt to rise and get out of bed. "You injured your shoulder, as well as nearly froze to death."

Jon blinked a few more times, and suddenly his gaze seemed to focus on her face, a touch of clarity out of the haze of fever. He nodded, allowing her to settle the blankets more securely over him. She was forced to lean close for a moment, her cheek mere inches from his as she adjusted the pillows behind his head.

"Thank you," he said, a tired, gravelling whisper in her ear. She leaned back in surprise, just far enough to look back at him. He sighed, and glanced down at her hand that rested near his on the bed.

Jon eventually reached out and held it for a moment, smoothing the back of her warm hand with his thumb.

It was too…familiar. Too much.

Larisa quickly tried to ease away, "Your grace—"

"Jon," he corrected.

But the strength behind his eyes soon faded, along with his grip. She waited until he finally slept before she was able to reclaim her hand.

Instead, she brushed back his hair away from his face. Despite the quiet voice inside which reminded that she shouldn't, Larisa pressed her lips to his sweating forehead in a soft kiss.

"Sleep well," she smiled. "You brave fool."


	10. A Formidable Woman

** Every Loyalty **

.

**_Chapter X:_ **

**_A Formidable Woman_ **

It was among her first weeks at the capital in King Robert's court. Larisa was barely twelve years old, and she kept pricking her finger with the needle because for once, she couldn't care less about her stitching. She also couldn't manage to stop weeping.

Later she would guess it was hard to keep up the semblance of polite conversation, because in that moment Cersei rolled her eyes and snapped, finally, "What _are_ you sniveling at, child?"

Larisa ducked her head. It wasn't the first time she'd heard the Queen speak harshly, but it was the first time Cersei had lost patience with her.

"It's…it's nothing, your grace."

Cersei's smile suggested she didn't really care either way. It was a far cry from the serene look she wore for her husband, and anybody else who crossed her path, for that matter. But Myrcella was with Jaime, and Joffrey was off brooding somewhere on his own. Her mother had taken ill and had retired to her chamber, and her brothers were chasing Tommen in the courtyard with sticks.

It really was just the two of them this afternoon while her father met with King Robert.

Larisa had never known her cousins very well; they were much older than her, but she had been so excited to meet the Queen of Westeros, the beauty everyone always told Larisa she resembled.

Now she knew that was just what people said to young girls with famous relatives.

"You may as well be out with it," Cersei said eventually.

Waving off her handmaids, she leaned across the space between them and took the stitching from Larisa's hands. She then took a cloth, dipped it in a chalice of water and cleaned off the girl's bloodied fingers.

"We have a while yet until supper," she said, then righted herself in her chair, gazing at Larisa expectantly.

The girl looked down at her hands. Tentatively she folded them in her lap.

"I don't belong here," she confessed.

The other girls at court, the daughters of nobles like she was, they smiled to her face and said, _how nice, that your eyes are not as dull and brown as your hair_.

 _Lucky for you_ , they'd laughed, that her skin was soft, when so many freckles marred her shoulders.

Huddled together in the garden, they gossiped about trivial things, and sighed at the romantic plays they'd seen and the books they read.

Well, Larisa liked all those things too. Only she also liked the stories her father told her, real stories that actually happened; of Old Valeria and the First Men and the Targaryens. And also the ones her mother knew, about woodland nymphs and whimsical creatures—the stories that people here didn't seem to take seriously.

Those girls certainly had more to laugh about then.

Now, Cersei rested her head against her hand. Larisa couldn't tell if the Queen was bored or not. She asked, anyway, "Why not?"

Larisa couldn't answer that. She didn't know how to put it all into words, and even if she could, she was sure it wasn't something you bothered a queen with.

Two slender fingers lifted her chin, until she was forced to meet the queen's cool gaze.

"My father once told me that a Lannister does not lower her chin, not for anyone," she said. "Never show them your tears. Show only what you want them to see. Otherwise you won't survive in this world, little dove."

* * *

Jon Snow's cabin door swung open, startling Larisa out of her thoughts when she only nearly avoided its path. It rattled the contents of the tray she was holding, but she managed to save it all from tumbling over.

"Oh, my apologies," Daenerys said, just as surprised. Larisa noticed the suspect puffiness around the smaller woman's eyes, her tense shoulders.

Larisa lowered her eyes, if not her head. "I beg your pardon."

Daenerys stood still, as if waiting for something.

Then adding a thin smile, she moved away from the door.

Larisa couldn't know for sure, but she certainly felt like she was being watched as she entered the room and tentatively closed the door behind her.

Jon was still awake, already mostly dressed as he sat on the edge of his bed. He greeted her with a short nod.

"You're late," he said. She kept herself focused on pouring hot tea into a cup.

"You had company," she returned. And to her shame, she wished she hadn't stood outside the door for entirely too long, straining to hear what was being said. She wondered just what would bring the unyielding Dragon Queen to tears, though.

Jon certainly didn't offer up that information. Larisa didn't think he appreciated the efforts she'd made, leafing through those dusty old maester's books for herbal remedies.

"I hate tea," he grimaced, after a sip.

She sighed and went for the jar that contained a salve. "So you often remind me."

"How much more are you gunna make me drink it?" he asked, but did she hear a note of teasing in his voice?

Thankfully he removed his tunic without her having to ask, and she started in applying the salve to his shoulder. The bruising and swelling had gone down considerably in past weeks. In her opinion (novice though it was), it would continue healing fine on its own from now on, just like the rest of him.

"Until Davos agrees that I no longer have to make it," she snipped. It was hard to fight even a small smile at the look he gave her, annoyed but resigned. He knew how close he came to death, and yet they both knew it wouldn't be the last time.

Even after these weeks at sea, she still hadn't been told exactly what happened—why Jon now spoke a bit gentler to Daenerys, something more familiar passing between them.

"What happened," Larisa said before she could help herself. She sat down beside him and cleared her throat. "What happened, after you sent Gendry to us?"

Jon didn't answer for a moment, but when he did, he spoke of the long night after they were surrounded by wights, and the White Walkers who controlled them. They'd been trapped in the center of a lake that froze over enough by the morning for the wights to cross.

"If not for Daenerys, we'd have all been dead," he said frankly.

With his own eyes, he explained how he saw the Night King slay Viserion, one of her dragons.

"I've seen bad things. Horrifying things," Jon said. His dark eyes were direct, honest, as always. But Larisa hadn't seen him quite so honest as this.

"Nothing's going to compare to what's coming."

A knock at the door made them both flinch. Larisa sprung to her feet, putting a respectable distance between them when Jon allowed her brother to come in with the evening meal. The smell of it hit them before anything else.

"For you, your grace," Willem said, setting down the tray beside Larisa's.

"Thanks, Will," Jon said, but then he looked up at the boy thoughtfully. "Would you mind bringing this back abovedeck, with everyone else?"

A slow smile grew on Will's face. He nodded and took the tray back.

Jon stopped him just before he left. "Remember a place for your sister."

Larisa tried to keep her expression neutral when Will shot her a mild glance, but out of respect for Jon, he nodded again and was off.

* * *

Later they ate among Davos and Gendry, Daenerys and her court. Davos told his stories, entertaining them all as usual while Willem served out portions.

"Judging by the smell, I'd say he made that meal himself," Larisa said.

"With one of your recipes, probably," Jon remarked. She gazed at him narrowly, but the upward quirk of her lips gave her away.

Instead, she mentally noted that he was finally standing and moving around naturally. She was reminded of those days in the beginning of their voyage: when he was half-frozen and still as death, and then pale and almost delirious with fever.

"He was worried for you," she admitted.

Jon looked down at his meal, choosing to continue eating rather than answer.

"You seem close," he said eventually, "you and your brother."

"I suppose so," she agreed. "Our mother often wasn't well…the only way I could see to help was with Will. Believe it or not, he was the trouble child."

"I don't know if I do believe it," he said, hedging her a glance.

She shook her head. "I used to pray that my own children wouldn't be as exhausting as him."

Jon grinned slightly behind a flask of ale. "I imagine you'll find a way to tame 'em."

Larisa blanked. The heat of anxiety crept at the back of her neck, but she ignored it.

She said nothing and brought a cup of wine to her lips.

"I uh…didn't mean anything by it," Jon trailed.

She realized he thought he'd offended her somehow.

"It's not that, your grace," she said airily. "I just don't suppose I'll get that chance."

"Why?" he asked, his more familiar frown replacing the levity that had briefly lightened him. Larisa only held his gaze, long enough to conjure something he would believe.

"With what's coming," she said pointedly, "I can't imagine a worse time for a child to come into this world."

* * *

Larisa stood with her back against the large wooden pillar that made up the mast. She watched the moon's dim light on the black waters alone, a shawl wrapped tightly around her from the chill that should've have been in the summer South.

They would arrive at the capital soon enough.

She was well-practiced in hiding her apprehension from Willem, but dread was nearly a living thing inside her; not only from the creature locked down belowdecks, but mostly of what would happen in King's Landing. Of what she would do upon seeing the woman responsible for her father and brother's death.

But she couldn't afford to misstep, not in the capital. Not when she still hadn't found her mother.

Larisa heard voices behind her, carried on the wind. With the mast hiding her from view, she snuck a glance at the silvery strands of Daenerys's hair. Leaning out a bit farther, she saw Jon, Davos and Tyrion with her.

What must've been a council meeting dispersed as the men went their separate ways, until Daenerys called on Jon a moment.

They stood there together, talking in low tones. Larisa couldn't pick out much of anything they were saying, but she thought she caught a glimpse of a smile on Jon's face.

She saw no way back to her cabin without being spotted. Though just then, she nearly could've abandoned her pride and let both of them see her alone in the dark if it meant getting a moment's peace. Perhaps she could slip by on the other side of the ship, but there was quite a lot of open space on the main deck.

Larisa hesitated, until the thought of being caught behind the mast urged her out of her hiding place. She'd only made a few strides when she was nearly startled out of her wits by Drogon soaring overhead, dipping lower than usual beside the ship before surging on into the night. His dark scarlet wings were a beautiful, terrifying sight, and Larisa felt their power in the gusts of wind that pushed her back towards the base of the mast.

"I believe that's his way of checking up on me," Daenerys said. She appeared from the other side of the hull.

Larisa barely controlled her reaction to a small flinch and met the other woman's stare as neutrally as possible. She knew what should happen next; she was meant to offer a demure apology for not immediately acknowledging the queen's presence. She was meant to cross her ankles and bow her head with a flourish of her skirts. And yet, Larisa found that she couldn't.

Daenerys's head tilted to one side, her lips quirking as if she were vaguely amused and intrigued.

"Forgive me, Lady Larisa. I realize that we're not terribly well acquainted, but I believe a proper woman such as yourself knows well her due courtesy before a queen," she said.

When Larisa's father gave her to her husband, despite the implications of her house she'd learned her value. She knew she had no place beside a formidable woman, with her dragons and armies. But she had long grown tired of being mocked.

"With all due respect," Larisa said, "you may have been a queen across the Narrow Sea, among the scum of Slaver's Bay. You may devise yourself to be a queen here, but I pledged no oath to you."

Against any crude expectation of what Daenerys might have done next, she smiled.

"But you don't deny that I _am_ what I say I am."

Though somewhat relieved that she wasn't already surrounded by Dothraki, Larisa frowned.

"All that time wandering the flea-bitten edge of the world clearly gave you a complex," she said.

"And what did a privileged life in the Westerlands give _you_?" Daenerys returned.

Larisa's temper flared, and her restraint slipped.

"A weakness for custard tarts," she dryly quipped.

The queen raised a brow.

"You were brought up surrounded by excess. They washed your hair and dressed you, brought you food and wine and whatever other inanities you desired."

As she spoke, Daenerys moved on idly toward the ship's hull, the heels of her boots falling lightly on the wood. Her dress was fitted, the shoulders sharp and the neckline high. It wasn't the look of a soft leader, and suited her sharp demeanor. The fabric was thick and well-tailored, and likely a well-paid price as well.

Larisa's own was simpler; the lighter brows and cream white of the skirts fitted by a thick leather belt were easy for travelling.

"Am I to believe you go without such pleasures?" she asked.

"Both of us were given a birthright for our names," Daenerys said. "Which one of us has earned it?"

* * *

They made port at last. Daenerys would not be traveling with them on foot, but Jon and Tyrion led them with the Dothraki to the Dragon Pit, where they were met on the road by a hoard of Gold Cloaks led by a man Tyrion called Sir Bronn of the Blackwater.

Larisa remembered the day he must have received that title all too well, but his face was only a little familiar at best. With him were Brienne of Tarth and Podrick Paine, likely sent to represent Sansa at the gathering.

The Dragon Pit was immense; it's walls were half-destroyed by time, but to Larisa, the impression of the structure seemed at once a theater and a cage. There was a raised platform in the center with three sections of seating decorated with the Lannister gold and red banners. Tyrion and Missandei, along with Sir Jorah, Theon, and the Dothraki took the left, while Larisa and Willem followed Jon, Davos and Brienne to the right. Sir Bronn and Podrick filtered away from the Pit, leaving them to wait for Queen Cersei.

Larisa's chest seized when the sound of heavy boots and armor clanking reached them. Soon enough, Cersei's black knights entered the Pit. The Mountain led them, but Cersei was just behind; her hair was shorn to the neck, and her once flowing gowns had been replaced by black and a silver circlet, but unfortunately, she'd lost none of her elegance. She only seemed harder, her true cold fire visible in her eyes.

Larisa soon noticed Will fidgeting beside her as they approached. After debating within herself for a moment, she settled on discreetly touching his hand.

"Don't look at me," she warned him quietly. "Don't speak, even if they try to bait you. Just know that I'm here beside you."

She didn't know if that gave him any comfort, but it was the most she could do. The tension was nearly palpable as Cersei ascended the steps with Sir Jaime and who Larisa could only assume was Euron Greyjoy, by the sigil on his back. The rest of her knights took their stand behind Cersei as she sat down.

She addressed her younger brother coldly.

"Where is she?"

"She'll be here soon," Tyrion said.

"She didn't travel with you?"

Tyrion replied negatively. Resigned but clearly irritated, Cersei settled further into her seat. She surveyed the enemies that surrounded her on both sides.

When her eyes fell on Larisa and Will, Larisa stared back directly. Whatever the queen saw there raised the corner of her lips.

"I see our traitorous cousins have become Northern pets."

Larisa bit her tongue and clenched her fists into her skirts to keep herself from something she would regret. Her eyes unbidden flit to Jon, who glanced back at her, frowning.

Just as he might've opened his mouth to reply, they were interrupted by Drogon's wail. He and Rhaegal descended and eventually landed on the edges of the Pit, where Drogon scaled farther down with his claws and let his rider down gently. Daenerys climbed down and made her way to the platform as her dragons resumed flight. She took her seat beside Tyrion.

"We've been here for some time," Cersei said blandly. But Larisa had seen the woman's eyes when Drogon let out his roar, displayed rows of teeth and fang; she knew the display had achieved its desired intent.

"My apologies," said Daenerys. She turned to Tyrion and gave a small nod, and he stood, prepared to start the proceedings.

"We are a group of people who do not like one another," he began. "We have suffered at each other's hands, we have lost people we love at each other's hands. If all we wanted was more of the same, there would be no need for this gathering."

In truth, Larisa hardly heard her cousin speaking. She could only stare at the side of Cersei's face within her view. Later Larisa wouldn't remember what thoughts had raced through her mind, what memories had plagued her one moment after the other, but she knew that she saw too much of her father's likeness in the queen, just as there was resemblance between her brother and Sir Jaime, and with Tyrion.

"We are entirely capable of waging war against each another without meeting face-to-face," Tyrion said.

"So instead we should settle our differences and live together in harmony for the rest of our days?" Cersei remarked.

"We all know that will never happen."

"Then why are we here?"

Here Jon finally stood and joined Tyrion, breaking Larisa from her thoughts.

"This isn't about living in harmony," he said. "It's just about living. The same thing is coming for all of us. A general you can't negotiate with, an army that doesn't leave corpses behind on the battlefield. Lord Tyrion tells me a million people live in this city…there are about to become a million more soldiers in the Army of the Dead."

"I imagine for most of them it would be an improvement," Cersei mocked. As expected, she saw no credence in a truce based on an impeding war against myth and legend. She saw it as a play on Daenerys's part to solidify her position in Westeros with Cersei's army pulled back to the South.

When it became clear they could not move forward through talking in circles, Sandor Clegane brought the sealed cage and set it down on the platform. He unfastened the chains and kicked the cage forward, stirring the creature inside to scramble out hissing and screaming.

The iron clasp around its ankle prevented the wight from attacking, but Larisa almost leapt out of her skin all the same. Will was stock still in his seat, though he eventually pried at her painful grip on his wrist.

Cersei was ashen by the time Clegane and Jon finished off the wight, and all while Jon explained the ways the creature could be killed, Larisa felt increasingly sick to her stomach.

"There is only one war that matters," he said at last. "The Great War. And it is here."

Larisa watched Cersei share a look with Jaime, who looked more disturbed than any in her party.

"I didn't believe it until I saw them," Daenerys said. "I saw them all."

"How many?" Jaime asked.

"Hundred thousand at least."

Euron left soon after, claiming he would take the Iron Fleet back to the Iron Islands.

"He's right to be afraid," Cersei said of him. "And a coward to run. If those things come for us, there will be no kingdoms to rule. Everything we suffered would've been for nothing. Everything we lost, would've been for nothing. The Crown accepts your truce. Until the Dead are defeated, they are the true enemy."

She then addressed Jon Snow, "In return the King in the North will extend this truce; he will remain in the North where he belongs, he will not take up arms against the Lannisters, he will not choose sides."

"Just the King in the North, not me?" Daenerys asked.

"I would never ask it of you. You would never agree to it, and if you did, I would trust you even less than I do now," Cersei sneered. "I ask it only of Ned Stark's son. I know Ned Stark's son will be true to his word."

Larisa held her breath. It was a fair deal, and the best Jon would receive for that matter. Though she liked the idea of returning North even less than staying in the South, there was no answer he could give other than to accept if the truce was to be made.

"I am true to my word. Or I try to be," Jon said. He seemed to be struggling with his words, though Larisa hardly knew why. He might've been a man of few words, but when he spoke, it was with conviction that few men had.

"That is why I cannot give you what you ask," he said. "I cannot serve two queens, and I have already pledged myself to Queen Daenerys."

* * *

Jon considered the fragment of bone in his hands. He didn't know what kind of animal it had belonged to, but it was a relic of the great creatures that once lived and died here. He wondered what, if anything, would be left of them after the Army of the Dead.

"No one's less happy about this than I am," he told Daenerys.

"I know. I respect what you did…wish you hadn't done it, but I respect it," she said.

She looked up at the deteriorated rock that formed the walls of the Dragon Pit.

"This place was the beginning of the end for my family. _A dragon is not a slave_ ," she quoted. "They were terrifying. Extraordinary. They filled people with wonder and awe, and we locked them in here. They wasted away, became small. And we grew small as well."

"Your family hasn't seen its end," Jon pointed out. "You're still here."

"I can't have children," she said. He frowned at the admission.

"Who told you that?"

"The witch who murdered my husband."

"Has it occurred to you she might not've been a reliable source of information?"

Daenerys smiled slightly, but Jon couldn't help but picture the strained look on another woman's face when she spoke of children. Her green eyes clouding with pain, and some kind of fear.

" _I just don't suppose I'll get that chance."_

It had stayed with him since.

"What is it?" Daenerys asked.

Jon shook his head, though he found himself searching the small crowd of their allies for the woman, who stood alone before the steps of the platform, looking up at formerly grand structure of the Pit. If he knew her, then Cersei's callous words may still be on her mind. Or maybe she too thought he was an idiot for not just telling Cersei what she wanted to hear.

"She's interesting," Daenerys said. Jon turned back to her as he returned from his reverie.

"What?"

"She reminds me of you, in some ways," she said in amusement, leaving him to rejoin Sir Jorah and Missandei. "She takes her oaths very seriously."

Jon watched after her for a moment, wondering just what that was supposed to mean. He looked back at Larisa.

There was something wrong there, possibly more than the state of their situation. Her straight shoulders, soft features, the poised tilt of her chin, all of it was everything Ygritte would've sneered at.

And yet.

"Your grace," she dipped her head when he approached her, but she still seemed distracted.

"Is there something wrong?" he asked tentatively. But after the look she gave him, he amended, "despite the…obvious."

Larisa raised her eyes to his. He didn't know what she was thinking, but he could almost swear she was disappointed.

"You've chosen Daenerys Targaryen," she said.

Why that caught him off guard, he couldn't say. But before he could answer her, Tyrion returned.

Cersei followed closely behind. Jaime and her knights flanked behind her, and she looked to both Jon and Daenerys when she agreed not only to their truce, but also promised the aid of her armies in the war to come.

* * *

They returned to Dragonstone. Jon arranged with Daenerys and her advisors on a plan to sail to White Harbor together and return to Winterfell as a united front. He was finally able to reconcile most of his anger against Theon Greyjoy, long enough to give him leave to find his sister Yara and right at least one of his wrongs.

Jon had also spoken with Davos, and despite the older man's warning, he knew there was one last thing he had to do before they left Dragonstone.

"Your grace?"

It was clear she hadn't expected him at her chambers, which was fair, considering the early hour.

"Would you walk with me?"

She agreed, despite visible her visible confusion. He led her down the many steps of the keep to the cliffs of the mountain, where he was sure of their privacy.

"I meant to apologize," he began, "for what Cersei said."

"It wasn't your doing," Larisa replied. "I wondered what she would do, seeing my face…somehow I didn't expect that she wouldn't care in the least."

He felt guilt then; in all that time at sea, he hadn't thought what it would be for her and Willem to see the people responsible for their father's death. He knew that anger better than most.

"I wouldn't trust her word," she said. "That woman has no honor, and no loyalty save to herself."

Jon quirked a reserved smile. It wasn't the first time that thought had crossed his mind. He liked to think he was getting better at thinking like Southernfolk.

"I actually didn't ask you here to speak of Cersei," he said. Larisa glanced back up at him in question.

"I have a ship," Jon said, "for you and Will. I'm sending you to be with your mother."

Larisa didn't speak, her eyes were wide with shock. Then she looked away from him, enough to regain her bearings, he thought.

"I don't want people following me because they have to. This war that's comin', it's too important," he explained. She was much quieter than he expected.

"You know where my mother is?"

He handed her the note Varys provided him with. She read it quickly, her expression so frustratingly neutral. It was a wonder, for a woman with a temper like hers.

"Is she safe?" she asked eventually.

"As safe as she can be," Jon said. "You'll leave at first light."

She still didn't look at him, but she nodded in any case.

"So that's it, then," she said. Her voice was mostly carried off by the wind.

Jon gave her a respectful nod, though his chest felt heavy.

"Goodbye, my lady."

* * *

She should have swallowed her pride and thanked him.

Her mother was safe, just as her brother would be, and she was finally free. She only needed to tell Will.

He would be disappointed for childish reasons, which is why she had put off going to his chamber until that night. But in the time it took them to reach land again, Jon Snow would fade from his mind and he would be surrounded by the family who loved him.

She decided then, it was irresponsible of herself to have waited this long to find him in the first place. Just as the anger she couldn't quell within her was pointless and irrational.

Her mind made, Larisa dressed and made her way down the long halls.

* * *

Jon had only just removed his coat and leathers when he heard someone at his chamber door. Likely it was Davos, or even Tyrion, with last minute plans for their departure in the morning. His shoulders were weighted with it; he hoped they would get there before the Night King did, he hoped his sisters and Bran were safe.

He opened the door to Larisa Lannister.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. It tumbled out of his mouth before he could smooth out his latent confusion; the weight on his chest eased to see her, but when he'd said goodbye that morning, he meant it.

"I have a matter I must discuss with you," she said curtly.

"Now?"

"Yes, _my king_."

There was fire in her eyes that he hadn't seen for a while yet. He stepped out of her way, allowing her into his chamber and shut the door behind her. She stayed close to it, and he allowed her that distance.

"What can I do for you?" he drawled.

"Do you take me for a coward, a fool, or a liar?" she demanded.

Jon scoffed incredulously. "Excuse me?"

"I know I'm afraid," Larisa said. "I have a right to be afraid of those bloody creatures, but I have never been a coward. And I'm no fool—if I were, I wouldn't be afraid of what may kill us all in the great damned winter that's coming."

Jon shook his head, running a hand through his hair in agitation.

"Larisa," he tried.

"But if you think I'm a liar," she said, her green eyes wild and livid. "If you think I'm only a woman whose loyalty can be bought and swayed, or a Lannister who only—"

Jon grabbed her by the arms then, holding her firmly but not painfully as he stared down at her face, flushed red with anger and something else entirely.

The first time his lips pressed hungrily to hers, it felt like a sin he was meant to commit. Her hands pushed against his chest, though her mouth was just as complicit as his. In a short tangle of steps, his palms smacked hard against the wooden door to keep her back from meeting it too harshly. It rattled at their weight.

His lips burned a trail away from her mouth, finding the line of her jaw and the length of her neck. Her breathing was shallow in his ear, and her fingers grabbed at the thin material of his tunic.

Jon took her wrist, pinning it beside her head against the door. He let the pads of his fingers drag down the sensitive underside of her arm before he managed to pull himself away, just enough to see her face.

"If this isn't what you want," he said, "tell me now."

Larisa's chin tilted up towards him as her labored breaths made her chest heave. He let go of her wrist and found her waist instead, closing what little space was left between them. Her hand fell on his arm, while the other once again found the strings of his tunic.

She kissed him next, surging forward with a force that rocked Jon on his heels. Soon enough he was nearly tearing the seams of her dress while she helped him loosen one layer after another.

His boots and belt made a trail from the door to the foot of the bed, joined by her belt and rings and clothing. When she stood left only in her shift, his hands marveled at the fullness of her hips and thighs while she removed the pins holding her hair in place.

Jon had never seen it loose; it fell in rich waves down her back, and was thick between his fingers when he tasted her again. She met his fire with her own, sucking his lower lip into her mouth and biting down hard enough to strike a lance of pleasure down his spine.

Her body was softer underneath his, once they were able to stumble into his bed. With the remainder of their clothes laid forgotten on the floor, Jon's lips and tongue resumed their exploration further down while his hands found her breasts, massaging and rolling over pert nipples. Larisa's nails dug into the sheets as her moans became more strained.

" _Jon._ "

There were things he would probably forget; how the dim haze of light from his lamps splayed flickers of light across her sweat-slick body, the moment he finally slid inside her, slowly, as she bit her lip at the overwhelming pleasure that made both of them shudder. Her nails had raked the flesh of his back and arms, just as her bites lingered a dull, pleasant sting.

She wept just afterwards, when her release came so suddenly it tore a keen whimper from her throat. He knew she didn't realize when the tears started to fall, not until his palm caressed her cheek, and he brushed them away with his thumb. Her eyes were filled with such shock, he was compelled to close the distance between them once more in a softer kiss.

He moved to lay beside her, and she made to cover herself with a fur blanket without looking at him. The warmth between them dissipated to a strange tension; new distance where there had been...closeness.

Jon didn't understand it, or her, as her expression turned serene and unreadable.

"Even now, I can't tell what you're thinking," he admitted. Larisa looked over at him.

Eventually her eyes softened.

She turned towards him, tentatively edging closer. She reached out with a slender hand to boldly trace the lines of his scars across his chest and abdomen.

"What happened to you?" she asked, gentle as her touch. Jon took her hand in his, and he told her.

They spoke well into the night, and revisiting those old memories, he told her more than he'd planned—about becoming Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, and what happened afterwards. She listened in that way of hers, quiet but focused on every word, likely reading the truth of what he was saying even in the silences.

The lamps had long died out by the time he finished.

Once again, he was surprised by the tear that escaped the corner of her eye. She let him brush it away.

"That's twice now," he said. Larisa smiled flatly at his teasing, slipping her hand away from his. She hesitated, only briefly before she touched his cheek.

She leaned in close enough for their lips to meet; a slow and tender kiss.

"Fine," she said. Her mouth then curved slyly as she slipped her arms around his neck. Jon went along willingly.

"Tell me what I'm thinking."


	11. All That Matters

** Every Loyalty **

.

**_Chapter XI:_ **

**_All That Matters_ **

Jon had lost count of the battles he'd faced. He'd grown used to pushing his body past the limits of what was probably considered sane by any normal means (like he was a judge of what could be considered normal, anyway). It had been a long while since he was given the luxury of considering what was sane and respectable, in the name of pushing forward. Surviving until the next.

But maybe he shouldn't have been that surprised when his shoulder all but gave out on him after blocking a strike from Grey Worm's spear. The strength behind the hit wasn't particularly overwhelming compared to what Jon knew the Unsullied commander was capable of; they were only sparring, both for maintaining their sharpness and to pass the time these past few weeks at sea, on route to Winterfell.

But Jon was forced to play it off as the spear's blade glanced off his sword. He twisted to avoid the next strike that cut the air beside him, and he managed to slip past one more before their weapons met again in a clang of metal against metal. The impact shook through him, eliciting a lance of pain up his right arm. Jon gritted his teeth as he fought through it, and with a final shove that pushed both men back, Grey Worm spun his spear in his hand to bring the end of it down with a heavy sound that echoed across the deck of the ship.

They parted after a final nod of respect, and those that had stood watching resumed their duties aboard the ship, or otherwise filtered away from the scene. Jon also nodded to each of his men that similarly greeting him before he made his way down belowdecks.

Shielded by the partial darkness the hall afforded him, he leaned against the wall and reflexively cradled his right arm with his left, letting out a long breath through his nose. Not that it helped relieve the sensation of pure fire lighting up where bone met the joint and muscle of his shoulder.

"What are you doing?"

The dryness in her voice nearly made him smile, despite himself. He glanced up at Larisa, who stood on the steps leading down to the cabins. The sunlight pouring in behind her framed her unimpressed frown with a contrast that, to him, just made perfect sense.

"Nothin'," he said. She didn't seem convinced.

Raising a brow, she turned on her heel and said, peering back at him, "I'll be back with a salve."

Jon held in a sigh. After a moment's hesitation to decide whether or not he wanted anyone's attention just then, even hers, he eventually trudged over to his cabin at the end of the long hall.

True to her word, Larisa knocked before she entered with a small bowl and several strips of cloth. She sat beside him on the edge of his bed, as she had done in the days after he nearly froze in the Far North, on the voyage leaving Eastwatch for Winterfell.

Her hands were more confident now, undoing the buttons securing his leathers and helping him out of his tunic while trying to move his shoulder as little as possible.

"It doesn't look inflamed, at least," she muttered, and began applying the salve. "If you didn't throw yourself around so recklessly…"

Jon saw her concern for what it was, in her chiding tone and the concentration that wrinkled her brow.

"You really are a kind woman," Jon said, mostly serious.

Her gaze flicked up to his. He was all too aware of their closeness, her hands on his bare skin that she was even now refusing to look at. She couldn't escape his eyes though, and he was sure that if he stopped restraining himself and touched his hand to her cheek, it would come away burning.

"And you are insufferable," Larisa said at last. His fingers turned her chin up to him.

"Careful," he warned, moving in to close the distance between them. "you're speakin' to your king."

"I know to whom I speak." Her grin softened the bite in her voice, but at the last moment she ducked out of his grip to stand at his side. She reached for a few strips of cloth and wrapped his shoulder carefully.

"Now that you've bent the knee to Daenerys, are you still yet a king?" she asked, but the words were barely out of her mouth before Jon dragged her down by her hips across his lap, pinning her there with a grim smile. The only way to steady herself was to cling to his left side, her free hand on his naked chest, and she was forced to stare directly into the intensity of his dark eyes.

Slightly chastened, she changed tactics.

"You'll injure yourself further if you don't let this heal properly," Larisa said. She brushed his bandaged shoulder gently with her fingers.

"What will you do if you lose the use of this arm when it matters?" she asked.

"I won't live long if I don't use it," Jon countered. His gaze slid down the view he had of her dress, down the gold chain that hung from her neck down to the tops of her breasts, then back up to her lips. He hadn't tasted her in weeks.

A nagging thought towards the back of his head reminded him that it was the middle of the afternoon and someone might soon demand his attention.

But Jon felt her fingers coil in his hair, nails scraping lightly against the back of his neck, and it was enough. His kiss was more bruising than he intended, but she met him with the same and moved to straddle his hips.

"You still want this?" she asked against his lips. His brows furrowed in confusion.

"What?" he managed coherently.

"Me," she amended, pressing one more lingering kiss to his lips before she settled back enough to see his face while she caught her breath. "You want me?"

Jon's mind and blood were too immersed with the prospect of having her in his arms that her words almost didn't register. It took a moment for him to truly understand what she was getting at. Finally though, seeing the small shred of vulnerability she was trying to hide behind a flushed, but mostly blank expression, his heart softened.

He reached her with a kiss while his hands moved under her dress to grip her thighs and bring her flush against him, so he could show her rather than having to put in words the effect she had on him. Jon took full advantage when her mouth opened in a small gasp against his; he ran his tongue over her bottom lip before he claimed it.

All the while his fingers worked to rid her of the dress, finally getting at enough strings to loosen it from the top and slide it up and over her head. His pants were not far behind, but by that time Larisa had pushed him onto his back. She lowered herself, trailing her soft hands down the length of his body, until Jon was forced to grip her shoulders, groaning as he dropped his head back against the headboard with a loud thud.

* * *

Larisa laid tucked against his left side afterwards, toying with the pendant that hung from her chain. Jon knew it had value to her beyond a piece of jewelry; she'd had it since he first met her, and to his memory had never taken it off.

"Did someone give that to you?" he asked.

"My mother, before I left Casterly Rock."

That fell between them as her eyes grew heavy, with what he assumed was at least some sadness, if not exactly regret. They hadn't spoken about her decision to come north since that night, and he wouldn't force her to again.

Instead, he took her hand with the pendant, feeling the craftwork edges for himself. Larisa sighed, resting her other hand over his and stroking his knuckles.

"Whatever this is…it's not a good idea," she said. Jon chuckled.

"We're a bit past that now."

"Your people would hang me if they knew," she pointed out.

"I doubt it's you they'd be hanging."

She turned to him sharply then. "Is this a joke to you?"

Jon silenced her by pressing his lips to hers—the only surefire way, and the best he'd come up with as of yet.

They eventually parted though, their panting breaths mingling between them. Jon knew too well the last time he'd felt something like this, and there was a great deal about it that scared the shit out of him. It was the worst timing and the most inopportune situation. But unfortunately, he'd never been one for caution.

"None of that matters," he said.

"Doesn't it?" Larisa scoffed incredulously. After a moment, a smile tugged at Jon's mouth.

"Can't say I thought you'd be shy."

Maybe _shy_ wasn't the right word, but it was worth it to see her indignant again, pursing her lips with that haughty, slight up tilt of her chin.

"This is something new to me," she said, surprising him with her honesty.

Though he asked, "What is?"

She never answered him properly, only turning her body toward him to lean in and kiss the corner of his mouth, his jawline, and where his neck met his shoulder before he stopped her to return her affections.

But later her silence would linger in his mind.

There was a fair amount that she didn't say. From what Sansa had told him of her experiences in King's Landing, he could only assume Larisa had a similar upbringing. Unlike himself, she'd been taught not to trust. Not even her own family.

But for everything she didn't say, Jon had a feeling he was finally starting to piece it together.

* * *

Willem could've kissed the snowy ground when they finally arrived at Winterfell. He decided if he ever had to step foot on another ship again, it would be too soon.

All the Northerners were gathered outside the gates to meet them, but if he had to guess, they were probably there to see Queen Daenerys. Her white hair made her stand out next to Jon, and they were surrounded by her forces on both sides.

Will knew what their sheer numbers looked like; he remembered his father once brought Will and his brother Martyn to see his uncle Tywin's army, at the start of the war. Thousands of golden-armored men moving like one massive weapon—it almost hadn't seemed real to his eyes.

So he could admit that just being a part of the spectacle of the Dragon Queen even in some small way made him sit a bit taller, especially when her two dragons soared overhead and struck fear in their spectators. Though he still did his best to stay close to Davos and Jon when they entered the gates. He glanced over at his sister and noticed her staring ahead and Jon and Daenerys.

There was something strange about Larisa lately. On the ship she'd often disappeared into her cabin at odd points in the day, and once straight after dinner. He'd been left to clean all the dishes and toss the remains by himself, but when he demanded to know just what the hell she'd been doing, she gave some excuse about having to speak with Tyrion. Will couldn't remember why, exactly.

But he didn't have the time to think more of it. They were meant to dismount their horses and meet Sansa, the Lady of Winterfell. She looked as cold as ever when she welcomed Daenerys, and colder still when her eyes roamed over him and Larisa before she turned to watch Jon embrace a boy who sat in a large, wheeled chair beside them. He heard Jon call him _Bran_ , and suddenly Will felt stupid for not recognizing the crippled Bran Stark.

There was one more who had yet to appear, the other sister, if he remembered right. He looked around the crowd of Northerners again, as if he would know who she was even if he did somehow spot her.

"Come on," Larisa whispered to him as she tugged on his elbow. He was tempted to fight her grip out of annoyance, but thought better of it as they moved into the great hall. He took a seat next to Davos and his sister and tried his best to stay quiet while Lyanna Mormont and Sansa Stark questioned Jon's decision to support Daenerys.

The way Will saw it, he'd had no other choice. It wouldn't matter who sat in a dusty old chair with a crown on their head when the White Walkers were coming. And after what he saw at the Dragon Pit, that thought terrified him more than anything.

The meeting dragged on after that, and Will lost interest. He stared aimlessly out the large windows until it finally ended, and with no tasks from Davos, he was able to take his training sword outside into a small clearing and practice the techniques Jon had taught him.

"You'll get yourself killed with a wide swing like that," a voice interrupted him, and his concentrating, making him trip a bit in the snow. He whirled around and saw a girl, barely taller than him with mousy brown hair that brushed only a little past her shoulders.

But she didn't dress like a girl. She wore leathers like a man, and there was something about the way she stood with her hands folded behind her back, along with a bored expression on her face, that irritated him on sight.

"Who the hell are _you_?" he snarked.

She slowly paced around him, taking a long, scrutinizing look at him as she went.

"You're scrawny. You'll be fighting people bigger than you for a long time," she observed, quirking a brow.

Her smile was easy, and somewhat sharp. "Not for _that_ long if you don't tuck in those elbows."

Will brought his arms in reflexively, but still glared at her. He spied the short, thin weapon strapped to her belt and narrowed his gaze.

"What do _you_ know about sword fighting with that little—"

All he could do was suck in a breath and tense up as the blade was suddenly thrust less than an inch between his eyes.

"You should choose your words more carefully," she said. "Anyone is capable of anything."

"Don't be so hard on him." Jon approached from behind Will.

"He's a scrapper like you," he added.

The girl smiled, and Will finally realized just who he was dealing with; the resemblance was there between them, as it was between Bran and Sansa.

With a last deep nod to Jon, Will made his leave to give the siblings their privacy. It must've been years since they'd last seen each other, and he'd rather not watch such a private moment.

He knew enough of what that was like, anyway.

* * *

Once again, Larisa struggled to keep her temper leashed as she bowed her head to Lady Sansa. She sat primly at her writing desk with her chin resting in her hand. Larisa's former handmaiden, Martha, stood behind her.

"My Lady in Waiting," Sansa drawled. "It seems you've made use of yourself to my brother."

Despite the barb, there was nothing in her face or her tone, mocking though it was, that suggested she knew the truth. Of course, Sansa had implied once that Larisa's motives for joining Jon's expedition south was to get closer to him, to manipulate him. While that wasn't true, as bad as it would be for Jon if his people knew he'd bedded a Lannister as well as bent the knee to a Targaryen woman, it would be worse for Larisa if she gave away anything to his siblings. Evidently, to Sansa especially.

"Martha's filled your role suitably," Sansa continued. "I no longer have use for you."

Larisa had been biting the inside of her cheek in order to hold her tongue, but it was becoming exceedingly difficult.

"I haven't yet seen your shadow, Lord Baelish. Did you persuade him to return to the Eyrie?" she asked, if only to strike a nerve.

"I had him executed on grounds of treason," Sansa replied. Her mouth curved in a telling smile. "For his crimes against my family, and to me, my sister Arya slit his throat after he was denounced before the Northern lords."

Larisa held in her shock behind a neutral expression, or at least, as neutral as she could manage with such an image in her head. Sansa's threat was evident in her pointed stare.

"Garda may have use of you in the kitchens. You're free to report to her."

Sansa turned her head away from her to inspect an open letter in front of her, and Larisa knew a dismissal when she saw one. She forced herself into a curtsey and left Sansa's chambers.

Anger and indignation fought with her anxiety, roiling inside her as she contemplated going to the council room, where she knew Jon was meeting with Davos and Tyrion. It was all too tempting a prospect to demand Jon intercede and speak to his sister.

But Larisa knew that would be no easy solution. If she was ever to incur favor with Sansa, it wouldn't be through forcing her hand, or by using Jon; in that case, she would play directly into Sansa's hands. And more, Larisa would be exactly the creature that the Lady of Winterfell believed her to be.

She made her way to the kitchens and eventually found Garda: a middle-aged woman graying at the temples, and a heavy gait. She was sweating over a large iron pot of stew that she stirred with a large wooden spoon.

"By the gods, what use would I have for a skinny wretch like you?" she lamented, but she couldn't exactly ignore an order from the Lady of Winterfell. She paused in her stirring long enough to grab one of Larisa's hands and inspect it. One of her thin brows rose.

"Well, well. Not exactly useless, then."

Larisa considered her hands, which once were soft and properly refined and maintained. Now they were slightly rough and somewhat boney from months of toil for Jon's men.

"They're strong enough to strip hides from the rabbits," Garda said. Larisa followed the older woman's gaze to the far table stacked with the game hunted just that morning.

Larisa felt ill at the sight. "You can't be serious."

"Certainly you've stripped a hide before."

"Not _quite_."

"Well then, my dear _lady_ ," Garda smirked, "better late than never."

Larisa positively simmered as she withstood Garda's instructions on how to properly strip the animal. Hours later, her back ached something fierce and her hands and apron were stained with blood. Though when she was able to wash herself and begin serving out the midday meal, there was something gratifying about seeing so many men, women and children there together. Eating, telling stories, laughing together over a simple meal that she had helped prepare. It was a far cry from that first day at Eastwatch, when her first attempt at cooking for Jon's men and the Wildlings had gone so horribly wrong.

And in that moment, it didn't matter that these were not her people, and she would likely never be one of them.

With that sobering thought, Larisa got up to bring her dishes back to the kitchens. She stopped just shy of the doorway, where Jon Snow was aiming to leave as well. Both of them froze, until Larisa had the presence of mind to bow her head in respect.

"My lady," he said. His voice was neutral enough, but the gravel in it caressed her spine, sending a near shiver tingling along her skin. She reminded herself that she couldn't outwardly react; already she could feel eyes from those in the dining hall watching their exchange.

"Are you faring better here?" he asked. It was a fairy patronizing question, considering they'd both known full well that his sister wouldn't make things easy for her. Larisa restrained the urge to voice complaint at being made so low as a scullery maid; this was not the place to argue.

"I'm faring better on land, than at sea," she replied, smiling a little. "I imagine preparations for fortifying Winterfell are progressing?"

"Queen Daenerys and I'll be checkin' on that now, actually."

They looked out to the snow-covered courtyard to Daenerys, who was already astride her horse and waiting for Jon. When he looked back at Larisa, she read in his eyes the apology he couldn't say aloud. She tried at a smile and gave another low curtsey, allowing him to take his leave.

She watched him go out to greet Daenerys, and Will who brought Jon's horse. As the two rode out of the gates of Winterfell together, Larisa gradually recognized that a pinprick of jealousy was beginning to turn her stomach. Almost immediately, she refused to acknowledge something so vapid and pointless. But the thought remained, nonetheless.

Larisa sighed heavily and turned back to resume her duties with Garda.

_Oh, how she loathed the North._


	12. For What Purpose

**Every Loyalty**

.

**_Chapter XII:_ **

**_For What Purpose_ **

"Your sister doesn't like me," Daenerys said.

Jon walked with her through the camp of Northern men fortifying the outer walls of Winterfell. He breathed in the crisp winter air that was sharp in his lungs.

"She doesn't know you," he replied. The conversation was all too familiar, and no less uncomfortable.

"If it makes you feel better, there aren't many people she does trust."

"She doesn't need to trust me, not yet at least. But I am her queen," Daenerys said, with some steel in her voice. "I believe you and I will make a good alliance, but that alliance won't work if it is undermined."

Without a ready answer, Jon could only frown. Her words were not a threat, but a fact he couldn't deny. Luckily he didn't have to, as she turned to one of her approaching Dothraki commanders to hear his report of her dragons.

High above them on the ramparts of Winterfell, Davos tried to swallow the conflict he felt in his heart as he toured through with Tyrion and Varys. He had a hunch of what this conversation would entail.

"The Northmen and the Wildlings are loyal to Jon Snow, that much is certain," Tyrion said, "but not yet to our queen."

"That can't be helped," Davos said. Northmen were stubborn as goats, and understandably wary of outsiders. The Free Folk could barely tolerate one another, let alone the people they'd been fighting for centuries. It was a wonder Jon was able to bring them all together.

Tyrion nodded in agreement.

"For the moment, but how can we help it?"

"It sounds as if you've already got some idea," Davos said wryly.

"On the off chance that we survive the Long Night, what better way to unite the Seven Kingdoms than with a union—between the rightful heir to the throne, and the man who united the North."

"You may be overestimating our influence, Tyrion. Jon and Daenerys do not want to listen to lonely old men," Varys said. He glanced over the edge of the ramparts to where Jon and Daenerys walked together away from the castle, following a Dothraki rider.

"I'm not that old," Tyrion quipped, and with a nod toward Davos, "not as old as _him_ , anyway."

Davos offered a good-natured grin, yet he felt compelled to voice the doubt he harbored. He could admit that Tyrion's proposal was probably their best bet to maintain the peace once the war finally came to an end. His reasons were more personal than they should have been, but as Jon's advisor, shouldn't he also consider what Jon wanted for his own life? Or at least, what he seemed to want.

"If it's the kind of union I think you mean, it would be…tricky, to convince Jon."

Varys slid him a certain glance. "He seems a man to put duty before fleeting personal desire."

Davos shook his head.

"Nor is he a man for fleetin' fancy."

* * *

Jon allowed Sansa's Lady in Waiting to pass him through the doorway with her head bowed before he entered his sister's chamber. He found her reading a raven's scroll, a frown marring her face.

"Lord Glover wishes us good fortune, but he's staying in Deepwood Motte with his men," she said. Jon's teeth began to grind as he fought to contain his aggravation.

" _House Glover will stand beside House Stark as they have for a thousand years_. Isn't that what he said?"

" _I will stand beside Jon Snow_ , he said," Sansa tersely reminded him. "The _King_ in the North."

Jon could hardly believe they were having this argument again, but he was reminded that both his sisters shared the stubbornness of Starks.

"I told you we needed allies."

"You didn't tell me you were going to abandon your crown!" Sansa said. "You brought armies home with you, but at what price? _A Targaryen queen._ "

"Do you think we can defeat the Dead without her?" Jon challenged. "I fought them. _Twice_. You want to worry about who holds what title, and I'm telling you it doesn't matter. Without her armies, we don't stand a chance."

Her lips pursed, but she didn't argue further. He could see in her eyes that she wanted to.

"Do you have any faith in me at all?" he asked. She softened slightly.

"You know I do."

He smiled a little. "She'll be a good queen…she's not the Mad King, Sansa."

Sansa raised a brow.

"Just like Larisa Lannister is not Cersei," she said flatly. As Jon stared back at her, he wondered, not for the first time, if she thought him a fool. He knew how his decisions looked on the surface, and maybe he was a fool.

 _Maybe_ , he thought. But his decisions were his own.

"I know you don't trust her," he said, "but she's been a help to us too."

Sansa's eyes gleamed knowingly, just as her expression remained unimpressed.

"You mean a help to you."

* * *

Once again, gray dishwater splashed in Larisa's face. She glared over the pile of dishes at Garda, the great cow of a woman, who was already turning back to the assembly of vegetables she was chopping.

She was enjoying making Larisa sweat, just as she enjoyed dumping her used bowls and knives into the large basin. Larisa's back was already in knots from leaning over it for hours, and if the ever growing pile was any indication, her work would not be done any time soon.

Not that those long weeks at sea were much easier, where crates of ale and wine were more plentiful than water to cook and wash with.

So it was with the same annoyance and relief that she regarded Martha, when the girl entered the kitchens.

"Now what're you doin' here so early?" Garda asked her.

"Lady Sansa won't have need of me until the evening," Martha replied. She put on an apron and tied it behind her back. "I thought you might need some extra hands here."

"You're a dear lass," Garda said gratefully. "Go on, you know where everything is."

Martha surveyed the kitchens and eventually met Larisa's gaze. Larisa looked away on reflex, frowning when Martha predictably made her way over and sat on the other side of the basin.

"I don't need any help," she said. Martha only grinned.

"I expected something more clever," she said. Larisa bit the inside of her lip to keep a hot reply off her lips; she refused to be provoked further and prove the girl's point.

She also knew her spite towards Martha was somewhat childish. When her mother bade her to choose any of her handmaidens to accompany her to the North, Larisa had chosen Martha on a whim. Now she was just as much encumbered by her circumstance as Larisa had been, and in some rather unsavory ways, they both still were.

"You've never complained," Larisa mused. Martha took up another plate to scrub off dried lamb fat and shards of bone.

"It's not my place to do so," she replied, still with her head lowered.

"You've feared for your life with Ramsay, rightly so. And said nothing when Sansa took you into her service, just as smart," Larisa continued. "If you had married my brother, you would have been free of your family's debt. Instead you will likely serve others for the rest of your life."

At once Martha's expression began to fall.

"Are you coming to a point, or are you just entertaining yourself?" she asked.

The corner of Larisa's mouth had raised, to finally see Martha's dutiful mask fall away; to finally see something other than that doe-eyed innocence. But now Larisa was also reminded of her late husband; she hadn't learned quickly enough to hide how his words struck her like poison-tipped needles. It had often amused him to watch.

"You've never seemed unhappy," Larisa noted, as guilt nipped at her. "Until now."

Martha regained something of her smile. "I'm honored for my lady's consideration."

There was humor behind her eyes, and Larisa mostly held in her own smile. She would have corrected her again, had Will not come running into the kitchens.

"What's the matter?" Larisa asked, just as Garda said,

"What is it boy?"

Will's gaze was wide as it swung from Garda to his sister.

"Ser Jamie is here," he said. Garda's mouth fell open in shock, and Larisa knew she fared no better.

"You mean the Kingslayer?"

* * *

Larisa watched Ser Jaime Lannister stand before Daenerys, Jon, and Sansa in the Great Hall. She'd seen him months before at the Pit in King's Landing, but still, she hardly recognized him. He was no longer clean shaven. His shorn hair had grayed at the temples, and even with his gold hand, he seemed a different man. A weaker man.

"Your sister pledged to send her army north," Daenerys said.

"She did," he conceded.

"I don't see an army. I see one man, with one hand. It appears your sister lied to me."

"She lied to me as well," Jaime said. "She never had any intention of sending her army north. She has Euron Greyjoy's fleet and twenty thousand fresh troops. The Golden Company from Essos, bought and paid for. Even if we defeat the Dead, she'll have more than enough to destroy the survivors."

"We?" she echoed.

"I promised to fight for the living," he said. "I intend to keep that promise."

Predictably, Tyrion tried to intercede in his brother's defense. Daenerys was smart enough to note his bias, as well as where he'd failed, trusting Cersei's word. It was the first time Larisa found herself agreeing with the Dragon Queen, as well as with Sansa who refused to trust the man who fought against her father and brother.

But in the end, Brienne of Tarth's vouching in his defense won over Sansa, who trusted her word. Larisa could only watch in silence as Jon agreed, forcing Daenerys to choose between looking like a tyrant and bending to what appeared to be sound judgment.

Soon after the meeting dispersed. The queen, Jon and Sansa filed out with Bran, but Larisa found it difficult to move from where she stood, even when Willem left with Davos.

"Hello, cousin," he said, his voice mild, despite how hard he'd only recently been defending himself. He had to have been afraid for his life; she knew from experience what it was to stand before a crowd of people who very well craved to see your head on a spike, yet this man was likely much more familiar with taking his life into his own hands.

"Yet another who seems so pleased to see me," he remarked. She finally steeled herself and met his gaze, and was surprised by just how much she hated the sight of him.

"It's amazing, truly," she said, "how anyone could defend a man like you."

Jaime offered a smile devoid of humor as he began to walk past her. "You know, there just isn't much of Uncle Kevan in you at all, is there?"

She didn't quite know why his words boiled her blood so effectively, but she instinctively claimed a mask of indifference.

"Brienne of Tarth attested to your _honor_ ," she called after him. "Was it honor then, that let you stand by while your sister burned my father and brother alive?"

Jaime stopped, and when he turned back to her she read the conflict veiled in his eyes.

"At that time, I wasn't in the capital," he said. Larisa swallowed past the emotion threatening to choke her.

"And afterwards, was it your honor that left my brother and I stranded in the North with Ramsay Bolton?" she challenged, "Were you with your queen then?"

He said nothing. She was able to stand with her chin high, only until she was out of the Great Hall, and out of sight.

* * *

If she were to be honest, she was being rather pitiful. Feeling sorry for oneself was trifling at best, and repugnant at its worst. But as she gathered the scraps from preparing the evening meal with Garda, she had the growing suspicion that if she were to walk out of this castle, alone into the wood and the snow to let it swallow her up, it wouldn't matter.

Larisa thought she'd come here for a reason. These hands of hers—toiling for a purpose, she'd thought—didn't matter. _For what purpose then._

She almost didn't see the white wolf until its low growl startled her half out of her wits. Holding her beating heart with one hand and her basket in the other, she stared back into Ghost's ruby red eyes as his ears flicked forward. She'd seen him before, in passing, but had never been so close to the direwolf before. Jon had told her how the Stark children had first gotten each one of a litter, and she herself had heard stories of their ferocity. They were even more impressive in person, and of course, more terrifying.

Larisa's limbs were tense as she and the wolf continued their front. He sat in the snow, raising his nose expectantly. She then realized what he must have been smelling. Eventually, she gained the courage to toss him a few pieces of bone, stepping back slightly when the animal immediately tore into them and started gnawing with sharp, yellowish teeth.

Ghost laid down with one of the bones between his paws. If it wasn't for his size, Larisa might take him for a normal wolf. He was beautiful.

Jon was his master, yet she wondered with no small amount of astonishment how an untamable animal could have such a bond with him. She didn't know what lapse in sanity made her bold enough to try and reach out her hand.

Not toward the head, though. She figured his back was safer at the moment.

She quickly pulled it back when he began to growl in warning.

"It's only because he knows you're afraid."

Larisa jumped slightly at the voice that appeared behind her. She turned and found a young man, portly and bearded. He smiled apologetically.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to frighten you."

"I should've known better," she said, dusting herself off from the falling snow now clinging to her clothes. They walked a little ways from the wolf, giving him a respectful distance as he worked on the small pile of bones.

"You're Lady Larisa, aren't you?" the young man asked.

She frowned, realizing that she didn't recognize him. "I don't believe we've met."

He shook his head. "I've only heard there are more Lannisters here than there are in the South."

Her expression must have turned more frigid, as he raised his hands with another apology.

"I only meant…well, sorry. I suppose I don't know what I meant."

Larisa forced herself to relax. On the whole, he seemed rather harmless.

"It seems you have me at a disadvantage," she said. He smiled then.

"Oh, I'm Sam."

Her mouth threatened to form a smile as well. _Of course._

"Samwell Tarley?" she surmised.

"Well, yes. How did you…?"

"Have you not reached out to Jon yet?" she asked.

"I planned to," he said, face falling somewhat sheepishly. "I've been in the library tower."

"All this time?" she asked incredulously.

"News may travel fast, but not all that far up, I'm afraid."

Larisa smiled. "Well, I'm sure he'll be happy to see you."

"He's been busy, I'm sure," Sam said.

"I'm more certain that he'd make time for you," she returned.

All too soon though, her good humor dissipated. She hadn't spoken to Jon in days. They never could get a moment alone, and whenever she did get a glimpse of him, it wasn't appropriate for them to share more than a brief, polite exchange.

Just yesterday, Will had all but interrogated him for an hour at lunch, after he'd heard the man had actually ridden the dragon Rhaegal. Somehow, one of Daenerys's dragons had accepted him to ride, and the Dragon Queen had met him in the skies with Drogon.

" _How did you stay on? What do clouds feel like?_ " Will's excitement was nearly palpable, and Larisa saw the small smile that lit Jon's face at the boy's enthusiasm.

" _It's hard to describe. It just felt like air, I guess_ ," he replied. _"But thicker."_

" _What about the wind? It had to have cut like a knife,"_ Davos said.

" _Freezing. Thought it might knock me out of the sky_ ," Jon admitted. The conversation continued around him, and when he looked down the dining table, Larisa offered a reserved smile. But when his own was somewhat lacking, she knew that for once, she hadn't hidden her feelings well enough.

"Jon can sometimes have a narrow focus on things," Sam said, interrupting her thoughts. "But I wouldn't worry."

Larisa realized then that Samwell Tarley was smarter than he looked. Their eyes met, and she saw that somehow he'd guessed the truth of it. Maybe she did reveal herself along the way, however incidentally.

"It's all right," he said. "You could say I'm good with secrets."

She'd only just met the man. And somehow, she believed him.

* * *

Larisa sat down heavily at the first empty seat she could find with her dinner. Will was content without her, it seemed, and she grew tired of being a silent spectator while laughter and pleasant conversation happened around her. She was exhausted, and she didn't care to think of anything further than the meal in front of her.

"Evenin', my lady."

Larisa mustered a polite smile for Gendry, who had noticed her sit down across from him at the end of the table.

"Good evening," she replied. They ate together for a while. He carried on with other Northerners, and she ignored every time he glanced at her. She predicted the moment he decided to speak to her again.

"You look tired," he said. Then, realizing how it sounded, "Pardon my sayin' so."

"You're very observant," she mused.

"You're not sittin' with your brother and the others," he said. "I reckon you're not willin' to hear about the time Davos smuggled a den of whores out from their master's nose to live free lives on some island in the east."

"Not for the fifth time, at least," she said, smiling a bit. His returning grin allowed her to see Robert Baratheon in him. She could imagine what that man must've looked like when he was young—dark haired and blue eyed like Gendry, with that strong jaw. She noticed his hands looked strong as well, though his right hand had what seemed to be a scar.

"What's that?" she asked. Gendry followed her eyes and raised his hand, revealing what was actually a burn.

"From the forge," he said. "Happens sometimes."

She told him to wait where he was, and when she returned, she moved her stool to sit closer as she asked for his hand. She applied a salve she got from the maester and allowed him to have the rest.

"You should apply it twice a day at least, in the morning and at night."

"Thanks," Gendry nodded. "You should finish eating. I didn't mean to take you away from—"

"It's no trouble." She waved dismissively and went back to her original place at the table. Gendry was giving her a measuring look, one she wasn't altogether comfortable with.

"You have a gentle touch," he said. "…I had wanted to thank you again for that night that you stayed with me, at Eastwatch. If it weren't for you, I probably would've frozen to death."

Larisa found herself lacking a proper response. She wasn't usually thanked, but she supposed it was because she didn't often do things worth someone's thanks.

"I know when I came back, I wasn't the one you were hoping for," Gendry said, grinning faintly.

She could only stare back at him. Her face and neck suddenly felt warm, but she resisted the urge to make sure. It seemed she wasn't as discreet as she thought she was, and for her, that was more frustrating than anything else.

* * *

It took longer than normal to clear out the dining hall and get the dishes washed; or maybe it only felt longer. By the time she was able to make the climb upstairs and head towards her chamber, she was sure it had to be coming upon midnight.

A hand closed on hers from the darkness and she nearly screamed, until she realized whose hand it was.

"By the gods, what are you doing?" she hissed. Once again, it felt as if her heart would leap out of her chest from fright. Jon signalled her to be quiet. He led her to his chamber, up more stairs and at the end of the hall. He closed the door behind them.

"You scared me half to death," she told him. Whatever she might've said next dissipated when she noticed how he held her hand between them, and how his dark eyes were scorching down her face and body. He considered her hands, running his thumbs over her palms.

"Who taught you to use herbs and brew teas?" he said. "I never asked."

Larisa's mouth curved into a suspicious grin. "Why ask now?"

She could tell he was trying not to smile, but he betrayed himself.

"His hand was burnt from the forge," she said, "It looked rather painful."

"You didn't eat with your brother," Jon said.

Meaning, she hadn't eaten at the same table as Jon and his sister.

Larisa rolled her eyes and slipped away from him to pour herself a glass of wine. The pitcher sat on a small table, left by her brother, probably. But she knew Jon likely didn't drink it. He preferred ale.

"I hardly thought you'd notice," she muttered, until she felt his presence behind her, his hands on her hips and his chest against her back.

"How can I make sure you stay out of trouble if you don't stay where I can see you?" His voice was low and gravel near her ear, and it was everything she had to keep herself still against the pleasant shiver that ran down her spine.

"I didn't realize I was being watched," she remarked.

"Didn't you?"

He sounded skeptical, and amused. Brushing the long braid of her hair to the side, his lips pressed to her neck.

"I'm sorry it's been so long," he said at last. She relaxed on him, taking a sip of her wine.

"I'll have you assist the maester from now on, or attend the library. Far as I know, that tower's been empty for months," Jon said.

Larisa smiled behind her glass. _As far as you know_.

She set down the wine and turned in his arms so she could face him.

"I hate the feeling of blood and raw animal meat underneath my nails," she confessed. "My spine is probably crooked by now…but the work needs to be done."

She decided that she wouldn't give Garda, or Sansa, or anyone in this damned place the satisfaction of giving into her misery. Even that thought itself somehow felt shameful.

"I could tell Bran and my sisters the truth," he offered.

"Sansa already suspects," she warned him.

Jon held her more firmly in his arms and waited until she met his gaze. "Let _me_ deal with Sansa."

She could admit, the idea was appealing. They wouldn't have to hide anymore. He was willing to take any backlash from his family, from his people, in whatever form that may take.

 _Too unpredictable_ , she thought, frowning.

"After the Dead are gone and dealt with," she said.

"…After," Jon agreed. He closed the meager space between them to kiss her, long and deep and slow. Larisa's eyes closed as she became lost. She knew this wasn't what her mother had with her father. It might not even have been as refined as what Elinor Crakehall had with the man she married.

It was a rough tumble into Jon's bed. A few laces were torn in his haste to get to the inner layers of her clothing, and she admired the strength of his hands, despite being slightly annoyed.

"Is being considerate to another man really the only way I get your attention?" she quipped. Jon's hand stilled on her thigh, while hers continued to unbutton his leathers. He shook his head and kissed down her neck and shoulder. He tugged down the thin sleeve covering the rest of her arm and she helped him slide it the rest of the way over her hips.

She circled her arms around his neck as his wandering mouth set her skin tingling with anticipation, for now between the valley of her breasts.

"Perhaps I'll make a note of that for the future," she teased into his ear.

Jon looked up at her with a flat smirk. "Shut up."

"Oh," she giggled. "Have I upset his grace?"

Her amusement died the moment his tongue finally wandered where she ached the most. She nearly choked on the air captured in her throat, and her nails reflexively dug into his shoulder. She didn't even have to see his face to know he was smiling.

Larisa was forced to let her head fall against the pillow as she fought the urge to squeeze his head between her knees. _Damn it_.

* * *

Early before the morning, he took her hand before she could leave his bed. Larisa looked back at him as a small pang of guilt bloomed in her chest.

"Have an appointment to keep?" His voice was rough with sleep.

She didn't want to go just yet either, but it was better this way. For now.

"We can't be found here together," she reminded him.

Jon sat up and moved to the edge of the bed. He yanked her back by the hand and caught her when she fell into his lap. He was just barely covered by a fur blanket, which only made her blush a little. It wasn't that she was still coy at the sight of his naked body, but the intimacy of being in his arms, just because he wanted her to be there...

She laughed a little, kissing his bearded chin with her hand splayed on his chest for balance.

"I can't stay, Jon."

"You _want_ to be my mistress?" he asked.

She reached around his neck and grabbed a tight hold of his hair. To his credit, he only winced slightly with a grunt under his breath.

"Not your _mistress_."

"No? Weren't you just about to make your escape?"

Larisa held in a sigh. It was far too easy to argue with this man, but for once, she was too exhausted. Instead, she pushed him back onto the bed. Following him, she kissed him fully, only nipping sharply at his lower lip when he started chuckling.

She sat back with irritation. "Are you mocking me?"

Jon leaned forward to push her hair out of her face, behind her ear. His knuckles brushed her cheek. Just when she thought he would've kissed her, his lips pressed to her forehead.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he said.

Larisa didn't know how he kept managing to surprise her. At the very least, she forgot her anger as quickly as it sparked.


	13. A Knight, a Lord, a King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I promise I actually do like Sansa as a character. I just need her to be an antagonist for a little while (but not much longer)! She does have her reasons though.
> 
> Also, sorry this took so long. Between working full time and school, things have been crazy. I apologize if this chapter is a bit rushed too. We'll be getting to the Long Night in the next one though!

**Every Loyalty**

.

_**Chapter XIII:** _

_**A Knight, a Lord, a King** _

Larisa steeled herself before she finally left her chambers washed and in fresh clothes. It was later in the morning than she would've liked, thanks to that foolish man. She wasn't looking forward to the earful she was sure to get from Garda. _That sullen cow_.

Though as she crossed the snow-laden courtyards outside on her way to the kitchens, Larisa found it difficult to dampen a small smile. In the quiet of a winter morning, she was able to block out the dull sounds of woodwork and the scattering of people starting in the day.

And within the privacy of her wandering mind, she unintentionally conjured moments from the previous night. Even now, she could still feel Jon's hands like an imprint on her body, his kiss, uncharacteristically soft.

She huffed a sigh, forcing down her smile. It was embarrassing to say the least.

So distracting were her thoughts that Larisa nearly walked straight into the men that grabbed her. A gloved hand swallowed her short scream.

She didn't even have time to struggle before she was all but tossed into the snow on her knees. When she was able to raise her head, it was Sansa Stark that looked down on her.

"Enjoying a leisurely morning?" she asked. Her demeanor was pleasant as ever.

Larisa clenched her teeth to keep herself from speaking too harshly, but the result betrayed her wariness.

"What do you want?"

Sansa's men—Northerners and men from the Eyrie both—stood behind Larisa, providing them a shield of relative privacy behind a nearby tower against anyone who might have been passing by. She would rather die than admit it, but in that moment, it was real fear that Larisa felt like ice in her chest, and down her spine.

"What happened to that silver tongue of yours?" Sansa asked. "Thus far it seems you've been able to use it so cleverly to your advantage."

Larisa's lips pursed as anger made her flush hotly. She bit the inside of her cheek so hard that she tasted the slightest trace of blood. It took every ounce of restraint to keep her tone as civil as possible.

"I'm not sure what you mean, my lady," she replied.

Sansa nearly laughed, but her smile was fleeting.

"If we survive the Long Night," she began, her cold gaze dragging down to meet Larisa's, "I'll allow you to ride south with your brother and leave Winterfell."

Larisa's temper finally snapped at its leash.

"And if I don't, you'll slip poison into my wine?" She enjoyed the way Sansa's expression flashed with irritation.

"One way or another, you will disappear from our lives," Sansa said, "like cutting a weed out from the root."

Just then, Larisa fully understood. The Lady of Winterfell wasn't the cold stone she pretended to be. Larisa remembered well the young girl, alone and scared and far from her home, who was forced to withstand more than public humiliation at Joffrey's hands. And yet, that girl had bided her time for the utmost ingenious moment to escape that fate.

"You accept that Tyrion isn't the same as Joffrey or his wretched mother. Jaime the Kingslayer receives your unyielding mercy, but it's me you don't trust," Larisa said. She was trembling with cold; the snow beneath her was beginning to melt into her clothes, but her insides burned regardless.

"It's because…even though we all do what we must to protect ourselves in this world, you and I have survived much the same way," Larisa said. Frustration made her eyes sting with tears, which she quickly swept away. "You assume I'm playing the game."

"My brother gave you an opportunity to stay in the South. Evidently there must not be anything for you there, so you mean to make yourself a comfortable position here, in the only way you can," Sansa said. Her own anger finally showed in the way her pale hands clenched at her sides. She folded them into her sleeves to hide them.

"My brother may believe those tears, but I _don't_ ," she said pointedly. "I won't let someone like you harm my family ever again."

Despite every instinct within her that fairly shouted at her to hide her tears, and swallow anything that wasn't calm indifference, Larisa couldn't get ahold of herself. It was pathetic, considering she hadn't felt this low in a long while. Even when standing before Jon for the first time, not knowing if she was going to be killed or used as a woman held captive often was.

"I'm not trying to hurt him," she said.

Larisa knew it wasn't enough, even if it was the truth. Sansa had no real reason to believe her, and every reason to trust her experience. Yet her expression began to soften, into disdain.

Her black feathered coat trailed after her as she left with her men. At last Larisa was alone, and freezing in the snow. She turned her head, wary of anyone that may be watching her. She eventually noticed, with something heavy dropping in the pit of her stomach, that the Kingslayer stood resting his back against the tower wall. He looked back at her with something strange. Pity perhaps, or something like it.

When Jaime approached, she was at first too shocked to do more than allow him as he helped her stand. He idly brushed off snow from her clothing with his left hand. It lingered on her shoulder while the other rested heavily on his belt.

"At least she doesn't hold a grudge," he quipped. "Not that I blame you…we don't choose the ones we love."

Larisa regained her wits enough to jerk out of his grasp.

"Don't ever touch me again," she hissed.

Ignoring the resignation taking hold on the man's face, her steps faltered a bit as she started off, away from the kitchens and the dining hall. She wiped at her face the best she could and wrapped shaking arms inside her cloak.

* * *

Jon was finding it hard to believe that a man like Samwell Tarley had been able to evade him for this long. Even more that they'd be reunited in a place like this, in front of his father's crypt.

"But I've been here for weeks now. How could'ya not—"

"I told you I didn't mean to," Sam said, in that earnest way that always made it impossible to be angry with him. There was something else though, Jon could tell. Something wasn't right.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Gilly, is she all right?"

"She's good."

"Little Sam?"

"Did you know?" Sam asked. His tone was worrying. Jon felt the beginnings of unease prickle at his spine.

"Know what?"

"Danaerys, she executed my father and brother…they were her prisoners," Sam said. The raw grief was still in his eyes. As little love as he'd had for his father, Jon knew the pain of losing brothers. Yet he could only stare mutely back at him. "She didn't tell you?"

Jon worked to find the words, anything that wasn't so awfully inadequate as _I'm sorry_.

"Would you have done it?" Sam asked.

Once again, Jon came up short. "I've executed men who disobeyed me."

"You've also spared men. Thousands of Wildlings when they refused to kneel," Sam pointed out.

"I wasn't a king," Jon refuted.

"But you were," Sam said. "You've always been."

The more Sam spoke, the more that the warm firelight within the Crypts seemed a shallow comfort.

* * *

The Godswood was frigid as ever. Only the occasional cutting winds broke the silence, until he heard footsteps crunching the snow behind him. Jon was too deep in his thoughts to do more than glance over. When he truly saw her, the deep hole continuing to churn his stomach only grew.

"We have a problem," she said.

Jon nodded, "Aye."

He offered Larisa a place to sit beside him under the heart tree. She did so, but she was clearly strung tight as a bow. Her hands were clenched in her lap, her cheeks pale. He doubted he looked much better. He'd been hoping to stay alone with his thoughts for a while longer, but it couldn't be helped, he supposed.

"Your sister," she said, "is very protective of you."

Jon grumbled a sigh. _This again?_

His skin fairy itched with the sheer force of his aggravation. He'd never wanted the chance for a good fight more than he did now—anything to get him out of yet another conversation like this one.

"You shouldn't let her get to you," he said.

Larisa sent him a terse look. "Oh, shouldn't I? Just this morning, she—"

"Sansa is the least of our worries. You get that, don't you?" he snapped, and finally stood. He half-paced without meaning to, much like a caged animal with nowhere to go.

Larisa got to her feet and matched his sharpness, "What is _wrong_ with you?"

"Why, would you care?" Jon said.

She glared back at him, slightly wounded. "Are you going to tell me, or continue acting like a child?"

Jon shook his head. He looked up at the tree, the one place where Ned Stark had always come for peace.

"My father," even that left a stale taste in his mouth. "He lied to me. Before I left Winterfell, he promised he would tell me the truth."

"About what?" Larisa asked. She came closer but stayed behind him, allowing him distance.

"My mother. Who she was, where she was from…I spent my whole life trying to picture her face," he said, "never knowing I'd already seen it in our family's crypts."

Saying it aloud finally eased some of the burden from his shoulders, enough that he could look back and meet Larisa's eyes. Her confusion was understandable.

"My mother was Lyanna Stark. My father…my father by blood, was Rhaegar Targaryen," he said. The more he explained, the easier it became to breathe. Once again Larisa listened to him without interrupting. She hardly even moved while snow sprinkled over them between tree branches. Her shock was obvious as silence fell between them, but she eventually hid it well.

"What do you plan to do?" Larisa asked. When he couldn't answer, she eyed him knowingly and framed it another way. "What happens when Daenerys discovers she's your aunt by blood, that you're the rightful heir to the Iron Throne?"

"This doesn't change anything. She's my queen, and I made an oath to be true to my word," Jon said.

"You mean to _tell_ her?" Larisa asked incredulously. "Do you have no sense of self-preservation with whatsoever?"

"There's no sense in lying when there's so much more at stake than a damn throne. Why do I have to keep sayin' it?" Jon said, his voice raising.

"Forgive me if I'm preoccupied with how you intend to live long enough to fight that battle. Gods forbid I consider what should happen if we all survive!" Larisa exclaimed. " _Daenerys_ certainly will!"

Jon made a sound of pure frustration. "It's no wonder you and Sansa are at each other's throats, you're exactly alike!"

"Then I should be more like you. Not worrying about tomorrow, or the consequences of my decisions," she said bitingly. "What are we doing then? Is that why you even let me into your bed in the first place?"

Jon reeled at the speed of _that_ particular assumption. "What?"

"Is that what you thought?" she asked. "The world is going to end anyway, so might as well?"

This was his life now, he reflected. He still didn't know how they'd gotten here, to this point, but he wondered if it was supposed to be this hard.

"Are you really that insecure, or are you just insane?" he said. It slipped from his mouth before he could reclaim it, and he regretted it straight afterwards.

Deeper hurt flashed across her face, as well as the incendiary anger he was familiar with. Larisa turned away from him, but he grabbed her hand to bring her back, her name on his lips.

Jon was able to catch her by the arms then, and pull her in close. He stared down at the tears welling in her eyes as guilt stung him.

"Let me go, Jon," she said, somewhat shakily, but still firm.

He let her go.

* * *

Larisa paid for her absence at the kitchens the day before with spine bending labor in the next. Garda was ruthless, but also fair, Larisa supposed. The woman never gave her any task she couldn't handle, and if she truly was struggling due to exhaustion, Garda appeared at her side with an extra rag or a sharp word of…well, not exactly encouragement, but it was enough to keep Larisa moving.

At the evening meal, she did her best to ignore how closely Sansa spoke with Theon Greyjoy, who'd just arrived that morning. They'd had a very public and emotional reunion which, from what Larisa understood, stemmed back from when the man had led Sansa out of Ramsay Bolton's grasp while he met Stannis on the battlefield.

It only further proved to her that Sansa Stark was indeed still human after all.

But Larisa also found that she cared less about Sansa, as the days were growing shorter, darker, and colder.

Later that evening, after the cleaning was finally done, she returned to the main keep and nearly stumbled upon Theon Greyjoy once again. This time it wasn't Sansa that sat closely with him by the fire, but Martha, who stood at his side serving him wine.

"It's warmer than ale," she said, smiling pleasantly. He offered her a slight smile in return.

"It is," he said. He hesitated with the cup to his mouth, but eventually he looked up at her. "…What's your name?"

"O-Oh," she ducked her head. "Martha, my lord."

"I'm not a lord," he shook his head. The smile dropped from his face as his gaze diverted from hers. He couldn't see how her expression fell as well. Though he added a bit late, "my lady."

Martha gave a small smile. "I'm not really a lady either. Not anymore, I think."

Theon raised his head again, if only briefly.

"Thank you…for the drink, I mean."

Larisa couldn't watch any longer, lest she be sick to her stomach. But she did wait in the shadows of the staircase. Soon enough, Martha began to make her way up.

She stopped short with a gasp when she realized someone was there, her eyes growing wide and then averting nervously. It was all the evidence Larisa needed to confirm her suspicions.

"I suppose it's now I who owes you a debt," Larisa said, raising a wry brow. Martha opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. It was no coincidence Sansa had sought her out on that particular morning. Larisa had obviously been seen, either entering or leaving his company. By now, it wasn't hard to deduce by whom.

Larisa pulled her cloak closer to her body and started up the way to her chamber without looking back. Her voice still echoed on the walls.

"I wonder how I will repay you."

* * *

It wasn't often that Willem got a reprieve from Ser Davos. Helping him carry out tasks around the castle wasn't just exhausting. Most of the time, it was boring.

He was practicing his swordsmanship again in one of the courtyards outside the main keep. The icy air in his lungs actually helped him focus his energy as well as his breathing. Will found it easier to be alone than he used to.

Jon didn't have the time to train him much anymore, and he only saw his sister at mealtimes. That was all right, he supposed. It wasn't like he missed her nagging him about things that didn't really matter in the first place. But the more he saw her, the less she looked like herself.

"You're getting better, I suppose." The voice behind Will startled him into whipping around with the wooden sword poised, but it lowered slightly as he scowled.

Arya smirked, "a little."

"How are you so quiet?" Will stared at her suspiciously, until his gaze caught on Sansa and Brienne crossing the ramparts of the keep. He knew Larisa didn't get alone with the Lady of Winterfell, but her red hair always managed to catch what little sun there was to be found.

Arya's amused expression didn't change.

"How are you still so small? What are you, eight?" she remarked, earning back his attention.

"I'm ten!" he snapped.

Arya raised a sly brow. "You're grown then? You've found a girl, have you?"

Will reddened, despite himself.

"It's none of your business!"

"You haven't, but you want to," she said, "a big one like Brienne, to hold you like a mother bear? Or a dainty one, like my sister?"

Will blinked, taken aback. He shook his head and went back to swinging his practice sword vigorously. He could still see Sansa Stark out of the corner of his eye though, as she walked down to greet some of her people. Blushing, he looked away.

"Y-You're crazy," he muttered.

"She would chew you up and spit you out, little boy," Arya scoffed. But she grabbed a nearby stick from the ground and tested its weight as she made her way around him.

"Does _your_ sister mean to do that too?" she questioned. Will gave her a strange look.

"What?"

"With my brother, Jon."

She leaned back in her stance, and let the tip of her stick tap once, sharply against Will's practice sword. It shot out of his grip.

He glared at her again before he retrieved it from the snow.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "What does she have anything to do with—?"

Will yelped when the end of her stick slapped his hand, making his sword fall once again.

"Tighten your wrists," she barked. "How dumb are you, anyway?"

"What in the Seven Hells are you getting at?" Will shouted. He lunged forward, but Arya slipped easily out of reach. With one well-placed tap to the back of his ankle, he was sent into the snow. Arya bent at the waist, obnoxiously close to his face. Her smirk returned.

"You thought you'd grow up to be a lord, didn't you?" she asked. "Everyone was grooming your little pampered ass to wear gold and feast on wine and roast pheasant."

"No!" Will shot back. "I didn't care about that."

"Then what?"

"I'm going to be a knight!"

"Really. Serving House Lannister?"

"…No," Will said.

"House Stark?"

"I don't know, maybe," he said in annoyance.

"Then who?" Arya posed.

" _I don't know!_ Someone," Will said. He finally started gathering himself and backed away from her enough to stand on his feet. "Someone great!"

Arya straightened. While Will was now disheveled, wet and freezing from being somewhat thrashed and covered in snow, she was untouched, almost unreal to him somehow.

"Why?" she asked.


	14. What Remains Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Long Night! Finally! It took me a while to decide what I wanted to do for this, so I hope this meets any expectations. Battles are admittedly not my bag.
> 
> (Part 2 coming up soon!)

**Every Loyalty**

.

_**Chapter XIV:** _

_**What Remains** _

_**Part I** _

Willem was glad to catch sight of Tormund entering Winterfell with his band of Wildlings, along with Beric Dondarrion and the remaining men of the Night's Watch.

It had already been months since their cold, harsh days at Eastwatch together had been made lighter by the man's loud, but generally amusing personality. He'd always made Will feel included in the men's basest jokes and stories.

Even though the red-haired Wildling perhaps now looked worse for wear, he set a large hand on the top of Will's head and fondly ruffled him.

"Aye lad, good to see ya still alive," Tormund smirked. Though it fell short. "Where's Jon?"

"I'll take you to him," Will offered.

"No need." Jon strode forward to clasp the Wildling's arms. "I thought we'd lost you."

"Almost," Tormund nodded. Jon greeted Edd Tollett next with a crushing hug.

Ser Davos often allowed Will to read his messages, and so knew of the reports from villages near the Wall. Eastwatch had been laid waste by the Dead, a portion of the Wall there crumbled down. With no word back from any survivors, they'd been forced to assume the worst.

"We met up at the Last Hearth," Edd explained. "The Dead got there first."

"The Umbers?" Jon asked gravely. Beric was just as solemn.

"Fighting for the Night King now."

"We had to travel around them to get here," Tormund said. "Whoever's not here now, is with them."

Apprehension grew in Will's gut. He looked to Jon, who didn't very well manage to hide his either.

"How long do we have?" he asked.

Tormund shook his head. "Before the sun comes up tomorrow."

He looked around the courtyard then.

"Is the big woman still here?"

* * *

"The Great Keep?" Will exclaimed. Davos handed him a pile of firewood.

"If you're going to argue, set the fire there. We'll be here a long while once the meeting starts," he said. Will nearly threw the pile at the man's feet, but as Davos so often reminded him, _you hardly get your point across by huffin' and puffin'._

He set the bricks of wood in the fireplace and stoked the embers back into a moderate flame. "I don't belong in the keep with women and children. I'm your squire! I…I should be at your side, no matter what happens."

Will turned back to Davos, whose gaze pondered the battle tactics represented in the stone pieces set on the table in front of him. His gloved hands gripped the edge.

"Your sister was at the Blackwater, was she not?" he asked. "And you were home at Casterly Rock?"

Will nodded, wondering what he was getting at. Davos beckoned him to take a seat in one of the heavy chairs across from him, and the boy obliged.

"Well, I was there too, fighting on the other side."

"For Stannis Baratheon," Will affirmed. Before coming to Winterfell, he would've called Davos Seaworth a traitor. He now knew that belonging to a great house wasn't the same as being honorable.

"Yes. I was his Hand, in name at least." Davos took in a breath, and his eyes became dark with what looked like sadness, but more. Whatever it was, it deepened the lines in his face.

"I was there when wildfire set the Blackwater ablaze," he said. "It consumed the ships, and the men with it. In my dreams I hear their screams as the flesh was licked off their bones."

Will was held still by the haunted grief, clear as day in the older man's eyes.

"My greatest shame will always be that I led my own son into battle that day, and never found his body afterwards," he said. "So you'll forgive me, if I try to learn from my mistakes."

The heavy silence that followed was soon broken, as the door to the war room opened to Jon and Sam Tarley, followed by the rest of the Stark siblings. Will took his chance to slip out before the Dragon Queen entered with her advisors. The council meeting to discuss their fate would soon begin.

* * *

_Biding your time, waiting for the perfect moment...whatever you do, just be careful, Jon._

Sam's words rattled around in Jon's head long after they stood with Edd on the ramparts of Winterfell, nearly able to pretend that they were still the same Men of the Night's Watch as they were years ago.

Preparations were being set in place, and hopefully they would be fully fortified before the Long Night came.

Well, fortified as they could be with what they had. Though they certainly had been able to forge several hundreds of weapons from the stores of dragonglass they'd brought back from Dragonstone. Too seldom few possessed weapons made from Valyrian steel.

His thoughts traveled as quickly as his path, which brought him indoors, and nearly to Daenerys's chamber. Only, he wasn't sure if what he planned to do was right.

_Whatever you do, just be careful._

His hand reached, but never struck the door. He turned from it and continued on, down the stairs and through the long halls. The next door he found, his knock echoed too loudly in the near-darkness.

" _Enter_."

Jon pushed the door open and stepped inside, shutting it behind him afterwards. The sight of her both relieved him, and made his chest tighten. It was maddening.

Larisa sat at a simple vanity and mirror. She let the length of her hair run loose over her shoulders and set down the hairbrush, turning to him then with guarded eyes.

"To what do I owe this pleasure, my lord?"

Her snark was thinly veiled, but he read the truth of her wariness after she looked away from him. She allowed him to approach her where she sat, and gently he weaved his fingers through her dark hair, brushing her cheek with his thumb.

"The Dead will be upon us by tonight. Tomorrow, if we're lucky," he said.

Her hands folded over her lap. "Davos informed me. Why are we delegated to the Great Keep?"

"We considered the Crypts, but should the Night King raise more of the dead, the Great Keep is the best alternative," Jon explained. "It's larger, its walls are harder to penetrate, and it lies far from the North Gate, where they are most likely to hit us first."

His hand fell away from her to reach for one of the smaller sheathed weapons at his belt. She took it from him, tentatively, and unsheathed the ten-inch blade. Her face seemed to pale as she found her reflection in dragonglass.

"What would I even do with this?" Her voice shook only slightly, but it was enough for him to recognize her fear, which she all too often was able to hide.

Jon was able to offer something of a grin, if only to try and set her a little more at ease. "The idea's fairly simple."

He was rewarded with a flat look. He then guided her out of the chair by the elbows and stood directly in front of her. He covered his hands over hers and showed her how she should wield a dagger of its size, and reminded her of where to aim on a Wight.

"Shouldn't you be overseeing the preparations?" she asked, somewhat sharply. "How is it you can be needlessly wasting your time here?"

Jon helped her sheathe the weapon and he set it down on the vanity, steadying her shaking hands afterwards.

"I want to be less reckless," he admitted. "I want to survive, so I can protect my family, and my people. I want to be with you, and you with me."

She stilled in his arms, her green eyes widening.

There came a knock at the door, and it soon opened to his sister. Arya's face was unreadable as she watched them, but she stood dressed in the leathers of battle. "It's time, Jon."

* * *

"Your brother is there on the ramparts," Jon said. "I have to go."

Larisa knew that well enough. It didn't mean she was ready.

Perhaps he saw that too. His gloved hand cradled her cheek once more, and his lips pressed a kiss to her forehead. She couldn't find anything to say to him; in that moment, nothing she thought of was good enough.

She allowed her gaze to linger on Jon when he finally parted from her to join his men. When the battle finally began, she knew he would be riding the dragon Rhaegal, far above them, and out of her reach.

Her stomach turned as she followed Arya to the battlements, where Sansa already stood with Davos and Willem. The moon was shrouded in the night sky with dark clouds that hardly looked natural, coiling around one another like snakes. The wind picked up and cut through her leathers and furs.

She watched the white expanse beyond Winterfell's walls, where Northmen, Wildlings, Dothraki and Unsullied soldiers defended the border in a blockade. She watched what looked like the entirety of the Dothraki riding on into the deep dark, where the wind seemed thickest. Their hollers echoed, until they were swallowed up by that abyss.

Less than half returned to the blockade.

Larisa grasped her brother's shoulder, whether to stead him, or herself, she didn't know. Will's eyes met hers, wide and warring with fear.

"Get to the Great Keep." Arya's voice was sharp, but not without care as she looked at her sister. She handed her a dagger not unlike the one Larisa now carried.

Arya nodded at her and Will next. "All of you."

Larisa eagerly followed Sansa down the ramparts, making sure that Will wasn't far behind her. Her breath billowed in front of her in the cold as they made their way past the Crypts, the towers, the entrance to the Godswood, and the armory.

When they finally reached the Great Keep, the sounds of battle were already underway. Tyrion met them at the gate, just as dragonfire breached the skies like flashes of lightning.

Tyrion nearly hid his apprehension. "Good timing."

Sansa seemed to bite back a remark as a dragon's roar bellowed overhead. They quickly followed him inside, and the guards behind him locked the gate shut with heavy chains.

They descended a steep flight of stairs until coming to a long hallway, and then a large room that was once a private wine cellar for the Lord of Winterfell. Now it held dozens of those who could not fight in the battle raging above.

Sansa awkwardly made her way through her people, perhaps with the knowledge that she couldn't do any more for them. Larisa followed behind and watched her sit with Tyrion, Varys, Martha and Missandei nearby. Larisa opted to sit a little ways from them beside Garda, and to her relief, Will joined her without her having to ask.

"Her ladyship graces me with her presence then," Garda sent her a smirk. "I'm honored."

Larisa refused to answer, though she noted how the remark earned a small smile from her brother.

"Is it bad?" the older woman asked.

"It will be," Larisa said.

Garda's expression became a touch more serious, but also resigned. Her smile lessened. "T'was afraid of that."

Larisa turned her head away. She didn't want to speak. Her heart ached with her inability, with inexplicable roiling. This was the safest place to be for hundreds of miles in all directions, and yet…

For a moment she watched Tyrion and the others tossing back volleys of wit as nobles were prone to do. She was one of them, and yet not. _Or not anymore?_

It didn't matter now anyway. Perhaps for the first time in her life, she didn't give two shits about what she was or what anyone thought of her.

Conversation ceased as the ground and walls began to shake. Lines of dirt fell from the ceiling as heads turned and whispered filled the room.

" _You in there! Let us in!_ _ **Quick, let us in!**_ "

There were men outside the cellar pounding against the doors, begging for entrance. Larisa raised her head. Her eyes eventually met with Martha's. She sat pale and harrowed beside Sansa.

" _ **Oh gods—they're comin'!**_ "

"Don't open the door," Sansa ordered.

No one dared move, even when the sounds of their screams and cloying for life reverberated through the cellar.

Larisa couldn't peel her gaze from the girl, who trembled like a leaf with her hands over her ears. Sansa grabbed Martha's hand and spoke to her in low tones. The scene was familiar; while blatantly watching it, Larisa could see herself huddling in the depths of King's Landing, her lips moving silently with unspoken prayers to the Seven while Stannis Baratheon rattled the city gates.

The screams died down, but the pounding on the doors only grew louder with the hisses and screeches of the Dead.

"We're going to die."

Larisa turned sharply to her brother. He held his knees in a white-knuckle grip, staring hard at the floor. "After everything, we're going to die this time."

Regaining a bit of herself, she grabbed his shoulder so he would face her, and hear her properly.

"This isn't the end. We won't die here," she said.

"You don't know that."

Her lips pursed. She didn't have an answer to that; not one he would accept, anyway.

"Out of all our siblings, Will, I knew you wouldn't be like Father," her voice shook as she held his hand tightly with both of hers. "If there is one thing, just one thing I can be proud of in this world, it's that…maybe, I helped you become a good man one day."

For a moment, it seemed as if he hadn't heard her with his gaze so fixed on the ground.

Then, Will squeezed her hands.

"After you got married, and left home," he said, "it didn't feel like home until you came back."

Tears slipped down Larisa's cheeks, though she didn't bother to brush them away.

Finally he looked up at her. "Father's gone now. So is Lancel, and Martyn, and Mother is lost. But…but we're still here."

She nodded and kissed the crown of his head.

"We're still here," she agreed.

The large cellar doors creaked and groaned as the hissing grew louder.

An ax split those doors at the center.

* * *

Jon couldn't see a fucking thing.

The moment he'd glimpsed the guard of White Walkers, he'd tried to steer Rhaegal into a steep dive. He cut through the sky faster than he could even comprehend toward the high ledge of snow where they stood surveying the carnage below.

The impact that drove Rhaegal back rattled Jon's very bones, and it was all he could to stay on the dragon's back while large claws and teeth snapped at him. The winds continued to whip his face and darkened his surroundings like a fog.

But then he could see Viserion's undead blue eyes, fierce and mindless, and Jon stared back at his rider that held a spear of ice—the same that felled the dragon he commanded.

The Night King drove Viserion forward. Jon ducked his head and determined to keep it while the dragons clawed and bit at each other. All the while they tumbled down through the air, almost as if in freefall toward the ground.

Finally, he could see the barrier of burning logs that surrounded Winterfell in brilliant flame, but he only saw it for that one suspended moment, before Rhaegal fell into the scores of fighting men. Jon was thrown from the dragon's back into the snow.

He must have lost consciousness, for seconds or minutes, he didn't know. He was just fortunate that the Wights that survived were curving a wide arc to avoid Rhaegal, who though injured and bleeding, was still warring them off with his fire. Viserion's ravaged body lay unmoving beneath him.

When Jon was able to turn his head in the direction of the castle, he thought he could just make out the blurry outline of the Night King stalking toward the blockade. His figure was eventually swallowed up by the ranks of the Dead. Even ones that had been slain were raising collectively behind him.

Jon's body protested sharply with aching pain, but he forced himself to his elbows, then his hands and knees. Drogon roared overhead, and by the time he saw Daenerys flying toward the rest of the battle, he was able to stand and grab hold of his sword. The gate was barely half a mile away, but it seemed an eternity.

"Are you all right?"

He started at the voice, but relaxed marginally to see Jorah Mormont.

"I'm alive," Jon croaked. "For now."

He unsheathed his sword and tossed away the belt. Jorah supported him on his left as they made their way toward the rest of their men at the barrier, cutting down Wights as they went.

"Where's Daenerys?" Jorah's worry was obvious.

"The last I saw her she was flying east, toward the gate," Jon said.

"The Walkers were headed there," Jorah frowned. "Bran must be luring them to the Godswood."

Dread coiled in Jon's gut. He shouldn't have been flying aimlessly in the sky, only to let the Night King slip through his fingers. Now he might once again fail to protect his family.

Both men jumped at the booming sound of boulders slamming against Winterfell's walls. The Wights had pulleys for their blue-flaming projectiles, that even now were setting fire to any banners and wooden supports where they landed.

"I need to be there," Jon said. He swung his sword at a Wight that nearly wrapped a hand around his throat. He stabbed it through the heart and stumbled into the snow. Jorah grabbed under his arm and helped raise him to his feet. They were close enough to the gate that Jon could see the Unsullied barring the way in.

"Can you face them as you are?" Jorah asked.

Jon wiped the blood trickling over his left eye. Before he could answer, Tormund's battle cry cut through just as the man himself swung his large sword, cutting down the gang of Wights that stood in his path.

He grabbed hold of Jon's shoulder and painfully shook him. "Where the _fuck_ have you been?"

"Falling," Jon replied dryly. His friend was bathed in sweat and blood, but the fire in his eyes couldn't be dimmed.

" _Good_ ," he spat. "You're better off here on the ground, dyin' along with us."

"We're not dyin' here," Jon said. He looked to the other Northmen and Wildlings being overwhelmed with Wights, and he shouted at the top of his lungs, so all his men could hear.

" _We're not dyin' here! This is our fight, and our home!"_ he said. " _They won't take it from us._ _ **Not today!"**_

Many of them bellowed in answer, fighting harder at the rally. Some still were cut down. Jon helped as many as he could and asked several Northmen to follow him. Eventually he found Grey Worm at the gate with Tormund and Jorah at his side.

"We need to reach Bran before the Night King does," Jon said. Grey Worm seemed reluctant to leave his post, to leave the rest of his own Unsullied.

Jon grasped his arm as a comrade, as a brother in arms. "This will only end when we cut the head off the snake."

"I will stand with the Unsullied," Jorah said, sharing a look with Grey Worm.

After one final moment's hesitation, Grey Worm spoke to one of his soldiers in what must've been some form of Valyrian. The soldier hollered a short command, and the Unsullied acknowledged him with a shout, continuing their defensive formation.

Grey Worm raised the hood of his helmet. "We must go now."

Tormund called to some of the Wildlings to join them. He tossed Jon a smirk.

"Let's go kill the blue bastard."


	15. What Remains Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a bit late! Thank you to everyone who left a comment/are now following this story! :)

**Every Loyalty**

.

_**Chapter XV:** _

_**What Remains** _

_**Part II** _

It was getting harder to breathe. The stench of burning rotten and decaying flesh filled his nose. With the sheer amount of bodies crowding at him, spindly fingers grabbing at his arms and reaching for his face—it was too much like the battle against the Bolton army, and yet so much worse. Jon could barely see a foot ahead in the mass of fighting men and Dead. The sight of blue eyes flashing in front of him guided his sword, but he could feel himself being pulled down, sharp teeth biting into his ankle, nails into the flesh of his thigh.

A boney hand grabbed his wrist and shoulder, pulling his sword down so another could glance at his head. He nearly wasn't able to duck in time, but those hands continued to pull him down into the snow and hard cobblestone.

He only just caught the glint of a knife aiming to gouge his neck, until a growl and a set of powerful canine jaws closed over the weapon and the hand that held it, wrenching it away. Jon watched in wide-eyed shock as Ghost closed on the Wight's jugular, ripping its head clean off.

Tormund was there next, setting fire to the remaining parts with a torch. He passed it on to another Wildling before he gave Jon a hand, helping him to his feet.

"That's one loyal beast," Tormund remarked.

Jon inwardly agreed, rubbing one of Ghost's ears affectionately. He frowned to see the other ear missing a chunk of flesh and fur. Finally though, he was able to see Grey Worm now that the wave of Wights were being pushed back by the other Northmen and Wildlings. The Wights that were able to escape them were moving fast across Winterfell's inner courtyard. If they kept on at that speed, they would reach the Great Keep soon enough.

"They came from the Crypts." Jon grimaced.

Tormund echoed his thoughts, "They're heading for the Keep."

"They smell the others," Grey Worm said.

Dread coiled in the pit of Jon's stomach. If those things were able to pry open the doors of the Keep, everyone who was taking shelter there would be slaughtered. Women and children, the old and the sick. _Sansa, Larisa and Will_ …

Grey Worm wore a grave look that probably mirrored his own; Jon knew he wasn't the only one who had someone to protect.

He took a short breath, steadying himself, then met Tormund's gaze. "Follow them."

"Aye, you keep going," Tormund nodded. He rallied his men to join him and soon took off in the direction of the Keep.

Jon and Grey Worm took their remaining men and continued onward, past the armory and the kitchens. It was a bloodbath of dead, men and women still fighting for their lives, while Wights tore at their own limbs to get to those who were trying to take refuge behind fallen support beams and crumpled parapets.

Jon could see the gates before the Godswood. It was close, but as ever, not close enough. Daenerys was soaring high above them, Drogon's fire laying waste to the east side of the battle raging on the other side of Winterfell's walls. That was likely where the White Walkers were trying to enter the Godswood. Or maybe they were already inside, on their way to Bran.

Gritting his teeth, Jon fought his way toward the gates. Already the wave of Wights was growing stronger, somehow more numerous as they raised from the ground.

The Night King was close. That was the only explanation, unless his command reached this far from the other side of the castle walls. Either way, they were running out of time, and Jon's men were falling one by one.

Grey Worm's hand on his shoulder made him hesitate. The other man held tightly to his bloody spear.

" _Go!_ " Grey Worm was forced to shout over the cacophony of the battle and their men dying around them. " _Go to the gate. We will hold them._ "

Despite the deep hole in his gut, Jon nodded. He clasped the other man's arm once, in respect for the warrior, and a friend.

When he eventually reached the gate of the Godswood on his own, he looked over his shoulder to see the Wights clamoring to scale the iron spikes. Their bodies were gouged, one by one, until the spear was snapped in two.

* * *

It was all too fast. Willem was thrown backwards by people fleeing the onslaught of Wights when the cellar doors burst open. He might've hit his head on the dusty ground, because the next time he opened his eyes, Larisa was there, calling out to him. Only he couldn't exactly hear her at first. Her face was frantic, but her words were garbled and lost to his ears. It wasn't until she was yanked away from him that the terror churning his gut registered.

Despite the ringing in his ears, he raised himself and urgently tried to focus his vision. When he found his sister, he didn't have time to think. He leapt from where he lay and sunk his sword into the Wight that had her pinned to the ground. It continued to turn his stomach, but it was also satisfying to feel the dragonglass blade sink into its writhing body.

By some miracle, his aim was true.

The creature clawed at its dead heart, but finally fell limply. Will scrambled to his feet the best he could, kicking the body over at the same time that Larisa desperately pushed it away from her. He grabbed her hand and helped her back onto her feet.

"What now?" he asked, his eyes wild, "Where do we go?"

"This way!" Tyrion called out to them. Sansa was with him, along with Varys and Missandei.

Will followed after them, until he realized his sister was hesitating.

"Garda!" she called, and grabbed the hand of the older woman who worked them in the kitchens. He had never seen her look so frail and afraid.

"Quickly, come on," Sansa pressed. She was halfway up a narrow staircase at the back of the cellar that led upwards, and seemingly out of this hellhole. She held out a hand of support to Larisa.

After a moment's hesitation, she took it.

"What about the others?" Will asked.

"Keep moving," Larisa hissed. She grabbed his sleeve to make sure he kept up with them on their way up the stairs. Soon enough, they were breathing headier air on the main floor of the Keep.

"Is that a fire?" Sansa asked, her voice lowered in a whisper. The smell of burning was unmistakable. Regardless, they kept moving down the hall to find the right path to exit the tower.

"I don't suppose that was their idea of smoking us out," Tyrion dryly remarked, but it didn't manage to hide his fear. "The guards were carrying torches…you know, before they were devoured."

"We'll be among them soon if we don't find a way out," Varys noted. "The fire may be close, but _they_ are closer."

"Wait," Missandei stopped them just before they were about to turn the corner.

With the hallway so still, he could hear the sound of steps falling quickly on the stone floor, getting louder, and closer.

"Go," Sansa said, guiding Missandei and Larisa in the opposite direction. Will was the only one with a weapon and training enough to use it. He stayed behind them all, his sword drawn to protect their backs. He turned to look back.

Blue eyes stared back at him.

" _Run!_ "

Will's shout carried. The sounds of inhuman snarls and hisses followed as he sped into a sprint, grabbing his sister's hand to make sure she kept up with him. Eventually, the hall split in two ways, and before he knew it, he had pulled Larisa straight while the rest of their group had veered left.

With the Wights so close behind, there was no time to go back—only to fairly skid to a halt when the roof nearly rained fire over them. A portion of it crumbled down, in large pieces of rock and burning wood.

Will stared dumbly as the Wights recoiled at the flames now licking the walls on either side, the debris in the center barring their way forward.

"Willem!" Larisa grabbed at his shoulder.

The fire was spreading.

Snapping back to his wits, he followed her down the corridor, taking a sharp turn, then another, and another still until his surroundings blurred in the corners of his eyes. He thought they must be on the east side of the castle, but he couldn't be sure of anything. His heart was pounding in his ears. Smoke was filling his lungs, and it was growing hotter.

Then he saw the window.

"Larisa, stop!" He took her hand, unintentionally yanking her back a few steps. She was pale and wheezing for breath, her hair wild. But she caught onto his thoughts as her brows furrowed warily.

"Tell me you're joking," she said.

Will squeezed her hand once. He let her go, only to try and raise the window pane. It didn't budge.

"Damn it!" he growled.

Larisa nudged him out of the way. Her heeled shoe was in her hand, though dimly he wondered, when had she taken the bloody thing off to begin with?

She used the small heel to strike the glass—three times, and it finally cracked. Will held her back from continuing. He could hear the Wights again, and by the blanched look on her face, he knew Larisa did too. What would reach them first, the Dead, or the fires?

He took the hilt of his sword, covered his eyes with his free hand, and broke the glass away.

"By the Seven, why didn't we think of that sooner?" Larisa said, but she still heaved from her efforts, coughing from the smoke growing thicker around them.

Will climbed on top of the window sill, his sweating palms slipping only once before he regained his balance. He stuck his head out along with his shoulder and sucked in several breaths of frigid air, then peered over the side. There was enough room on the other side for them to edge carefully along the ramparts to the main bridge.

Then he paused, meeting his sister's gaze.

He could hear Wights, moving faster, as if they had a scent.

"Here, I'll help you up," he said, a touch of dread in his voice. Larisa still looked reluctant. She tried and failed to hold in another cough; it was becoming unbearably hot.

He held his hand out to her a bit farther. "I'm not leaving without you, so you better take my damn hand!"

She hesitated, nervously looking over her shoulder. Will was slow to follow her line of vision, but he saw the way her face changed to one of panic. He couldn't hold onto her. Not her hand, or even her sleeve. She moved faster, pushing him out of the window.

" _Go!_ "

* * *

Larisa watched her brother for what felt like a fraction of a second. She'd wanted to make sure she hadn't pushed him clean off the side of the tower, but there was no time left. She was forced to flee the burst of fire that nearly singed her skin.

Then the ground disappeared beneath her.

She fell, down the short flight of stairs. But she must have found purchase on something while grabbing madly at the wall, because she was able to slide to a stop along her side. She didn't feel any pain when she forced herself to her feet and continued down the steps. Perhaps it was the fear of death that kept her going, or the fact that the smoke was beginning to make her delirious.

She was wandering in the dark, of what used to be the main hall. Jon had been declared king here. She had begged him for her life. For her brother's life.

Now it was a shambles—upturned tables and broken chairs, forgotten mugs of ale and cracked bowls. If she remembered right, there was an entrance at the other side of the room, one more long corridor, and then she could be free. She would brace whatever madness laid beyond the walls of the Great Keep, if only she could escape them.

_I will not die here. I will_ _**not** _ _—_

She held in a gasp, but flinched badly when the sound of loud scuffling echoed. From where, she didn't know.

Tears found their way down her cheeks and neck as she stumbled forward. She only wore one shoe, but finally, she remembered Jon's dagger. She slid it from out of the bodice of her dress and unsheathed it, holding it with both hands. Coming to the last hall, she took a steadying breath that still shook, along with her hands. She peered around cautiously, but saw nothing there.

Nothing, save for the open doors of the tower, and the light of the moon.

With everything she had left inside her, she made a final run towards the doors, and her freedom.

Something stiff and cold grabbed a fistful of her hair. Then her arm and ankles, and only her hands instinctively reaching out kept her face from cracking on the stone floor. A scream tore from her throat as those claws pulled, yanked, and dragged her into the dark.

Her nails scraped the ground, but couldn't grasp anything. Her voice, reverberating off the walls, no longer sounded like her own.

And then it was gone. The hands of Death that gripped her vanished, and she was still on the ground. Her ears finally registered the screams of dying Wights, the glancing of metal through air and flesh, and a man's bellowing. " _Hahaa!_ Come on, ya damn bastards!"

Larisa saw his flagrant red hair before anything else, but she was paralyzed, either with fear or relief.

"Ey, Missy, are you gunna peel yourself off the floor, or do I got to carry you?" Tormund asked.

Dimly Larisa knew she was crying. She wiped hastily at her eyes. But while her voice failed her, she was at least able to smile weakly at him. She took his offered hand, yelping when he hefted her into his arms, as if she were no heavier than a sack of wheat.

"This is no place for a lady to die alone," he said. His boots made large strides toward the large doors of the keep. He briefly held up her forgotten dagger with his other hand. "You may not be kissed by fire, but you're a little scrapper, aren't you?"

She would have answered him, but as they stepped across the threshold of the Great Keep and into the night air, Larisa had never been so relieved to see the dark, clouded sky.

"Thank you, Tormund," she said. Her voice was still coarse with smoke that had filled her lungs.

"Don't go singin' my praises yet," he warned. They both looked ahead.

The Dead were coming over the hill.

* * *

Jon reached the heart of the Godswood, only to find Theon fallen at the base of the weirwood tree. He was breathing, just barely. Jon looked past the trees and found Arya, battling the White Walkers where Theon's Ironborn had fallen.

The Night King was making strides towards Bran, who stared back at the being with knowing eyes.

Instinct propelled Jon forward, his Valyrian sword in hand. He deflected the blow that would have ended his younger brother. He saw recognition in the Night King's blue gaze. Disdain, with the slight upwards curling of his lip.

 _It's not over yet_.

* * *

"Don't you dare give up!" Tormund's voice startled Larisa enough to keep her wits about her. She stood on her own with Jon's dagger in hand. She had managed to kill a Wight on her own, but it was insignificant in the grand scheme of what they faced. They were surrounded, and though some of the Wildling's men had escaped the Great Keep to join them, they wouldn't last much longer.

The Dead were climbing over Tormund by the droves, grabbing at his sword that continued to cleave them like a butcher's knife. He'd told her to stay close, but her arms were shaking, and he couldn't continue to protect her along with himself.

A rotting hand grabbed her neck like a vice. Another grabbed her wrist, bending back her arm until she was forced to drop the dagger. Blue washed over her vision, cold and piercing.

Then it all fell away like dust.

Tormund struck at air as the Wights around him dissipated into nothing.

Larisa stumbled out into the courtyard, falling when her legs finally buckled. Dead men and women littered the ground. The Great Keep was on fire in places, crumbled in many more. She still didn't know where her brother was, or if he was alive.

"Come on, Missy," Tormund said. He helped her up and allowed her to keep hold of his arm. They made their way toward the East Gate, where Northmen and Unsullied, Dothraki and Wildlings alike were slowly making their way back into Winterfell from the field of battle.

There they found Jon, being supported by Arya as he held his side.

But he was alive. When his brown eyes eventually found her, he smiled.

She managed one in return. _You did something reckless, didn't you?_

Larisa didn't care that all that remained in this place was watching her. She went to him, and he held his free arm open to her.

Arya stepped away, a small grin curving her mouth. Larisa didn't notice.

With tears in her eyes, she touched around the oozing wound above Jon's hip, noting with relief that it didn't look that deep. She touched his face that was covered in sweat and dried blood. Then, mindful of his injuries, she stepped into his embrace.


	16. A True Alliance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I'm sorry! I know this took forever. Thank you to everyone who's been commenting and patiently waiting!

**Every Loyalty**

.

_**Chapter XVI:** _

_**A True Alliance** _

"So this is it then," Tyrion mused. "We who remain must decide what happens next."

He, along with Davos and Varys, sat in a claustrophobic, little used room within the Great Hall. It was one of the few buildings that had been far enough removed from the battle to sustain minimal damage. And so, many of the lost, sick, and injured had been gathered there after they'd spent the first day clearing the bodies, stacking them on wagons (and anything else one could drag a body on) and collected them for the funeral pyre. Dusk had fallen since then.

Davos sighed wearily, wiping his gloved hands with a scrap of cloth. Tyrion noticed, the man had developed the habit since they'd begun clearing the death from this place. "Less than half of the Dothraki army are left. Maybe…a third of the Unsullied?"

Tyrion's spirit dimmed further. Grey Worm was a grave loss, not only for himself personally, but for his queen, locked within her chambers with only Missandei allowed in her company. He didn't know who would be comforting who. Jorah Mormont had fought bravely, but had also fallen at the Northern Gate. Tyrion would never know a more noble man.

"The war is not over," Varys remarked.

His small eyes glinted with a grim apprehension, and Tyrion shared the sentiment. He'd loftily spoken of what would come after the war with the Dead, and yet hadn't readily expected to see it. Now that it was here, that _they were still here_ , it was all too easy to forget (or at least ignore) that his sister waited in the south. Perhaps she would become impatient to learn the outcome of the north and decide to come see for herself.

Tyrion _had_ developed a plan, however crudely, for how they would unify the likes of Dothraki and Northmen. But even now, he realized how naïve it'd been, to think his plan to unite the King of the North and the Dragon Queen would be well-received.

His mind conjured back the scene after the fighting had stopped, and the Dead had turned to ashes. Everyone still alive had gathered in the courtyards and walkways, from the Northern Gate to the Great Keep.

And then the battle-weary Jon Snow, the perfect image of a triumphant hero, stumbled into the arms of Larisa Lannister. She'd held him, supported him, and he'd raised his head to everyone who stood there and managed to raise his sword to their victory.

It was a pretty picture, that. And it would surely be seared into the minds and mouths of every man, woman, and child in this place.

"The booze is sure gunna flow tonight," Davos said. "I hear they found a few boar and birds to roast."

The silence between the three men had been dense and uncomfortable, but just like that, Tyrion was able to at least attempt a grin.

"For tonight then, let's ignore our responsibilities."

* * *

Larisa brushed his dirty, matted hair away from his face. He slept in a makeshift cot beside her while they stayed in the Great Hall with so many others. It was cramped and loud, and yet she doubted he could be disturbed if she tried.

If there was one thing that hadn't changed, it was her brother's ability to sleep like the dead. His face, though boyish, was starting to lose its roundness. Already he had grown in the year since they'd left home. Now despite the small burns and cuts that littered his body, he would grow much more.

 _And yet_ , her traitorous mind reminded her. It was _her_ choice to return here, even with evidence that they could've been safe in the south. Even now, Will didn't know that their mother still lived and was presumably well. Because Larisa hadn't bothered to tell him.

How could she do such a thing? In her own selfish desire, she hadn't even thought to tell him. Hadn't thought that he might want to stay where it was safe. But perhaps not. Will was just as reckless as she was, and even more troubling, he was terribly concerned with the idea of a knight's duty and honor.

Just then, she hissed and jerked badly as a viciously painful sting tore through her back. She whipped her head around, as far as she could without the pain getting worse. "You great, _stupid_ cow, are you trying to kill me?"

Garda met her glare with one still colored with amusement.

"Just hold still, your _ladyship_ ," she said. Her hands were only slightly gentler as they eased a thick salve across her tender flesh. "The burns aren't deep, but they span these wee shoulders of yours."

It hadn't taken much for the older woman to tear the back of Larisa's tattered clothing and begin clearing the bits of dust, splinters, and debris from her wounds. Many of her nails were broken from clawing the stone floor as she was dragged across it. Similar rash burns stung her legs and forearms, and she wore a cut from chin to cheekbone. But she was alive.

What scared her was her brother may not have been, thanks to her.

"How's the valiant knight?" Gendry asked as he approached. He brought them a pitcher of water, which Larisa drank from gratefully. She handed it to Garda, who nodded her thanks before rising to find more wounded to treat, though with a promise that she'd be back to check on them.

Larisa glanced over at Will, who seemed to be drooling on his arm. "Not very valiant at the moment."

Likely her worry showed on her face. Gendry took Garda's empty stool and sat beside her, smiling ruefully at the sleeping boy.

"He managed to find me on the roof tower," he said. "He fought bravely."

Larisa tried to imagine it. All she could see was her brother falling out of a window before the flames leapt at her.

"Thank you," she said after a moment, "for protecting him."

"He protected himself well enough," Gendry shrugged. His eyes eventually wandered, falling on the more enigmatic of Jon's sisters as she passed carrying medical provisions. Larisa herself wasn't sure yet what to make of Arya Stark, but the softening expression on the young man's face told her all she needed to know about his thoughts. By the time he looked back at her, she didn't bother to temper her amusement.

He cleared his throat, scratching at the back of his head. "Why don't ya get cleaned up? I'll watch Will for a while, 'til Garda comes back."

She hesitated to leave her brother alone, or at all. But she was deathly tired, and the sooner she could rid herself of these grimy, smoke-drenched clothes, the better. Garda had already found her something passable to wear and left it in a heap near Will's feet.

"You'll stay then," she gave him a measured glance. "You're not needed elsewhere?"

Gendry smiled slightly. "Can't say I've got anywhere else to be."

Warring with herself briefly, she gave into the urge to touch Will's cheek a final time. She left at Gendry's insisting that he wouldn't leave the boy's side.

Just when she reached the door of the Great Hall, she had the good fortune of catching up to Davos, who had likely been in meeting with her cousin Tyrion and the Spider.

"Are you well, my lady?" he asked kindly. "And Will?"

"Yes, thank the gods," she murmured the latter bit. She didn't know if the gods had been any part of it, but it somehow eased her to think the Old Gods perhaps inhabited the essence of this place. It was still standing, at least.

"Davos," she started, then paused. What she wanted to ask was on the tip of her tongue, though she hardly knew why she still held herself back.

But his blue eyes were sharp with understanding, even as he smiled.

"Aye, I know where the lad's gone."

* * *

His tired muscles were finally starting to loosen from the heat of the spring. The water was cooler than usual, but still close to scalding, burning away imperfections along with his scattered thoughts.

He'd had to enter through the Great Keep to reach the hot spring below even the cellars. If it weren't such a small space by comparison, too small for even fifty, let alone a couple hundred, they could've had the women and children hide even further underground.

Jon closed his eyes. It was inevitable, but he didn't want to think any longer on everyone they'd lost.

Just then, Ghost perked up from his nap, ears flicking. A mild growl sounded in his throat, and he rose, padding silently out of the cave.

A bit strange, Jon thought. The wolf had already fed an hour ago, unless he heard something worth investigating.

A few moments later, Ghost returned and stood at the edge of the spring. His red eyes watched him, as if expectantly.

"Can I help you?" Jon quirked an amused brow.

"I think he just helped me."

His head turned immediately at the soft sound of her voice, carried by the cavernous walls. He smiled to see her, though she looked anxious while her eyes took in her surroundings. Once they fell on him, she looked relieved, if exhausted. She held a bundle of spare clothes.

"So this is where you've been hiding?" Larisa remarked.

He shook his head, despite the small smile that curved his lips. "Not hiding."

"How can you stand the hot water with that wound?"

Jon touched the tight row of stitching below his ribs absently. He was used to ignoring his wounds.

"Garda patched me up pretty good," he said instead.

She kneeled down at the spring, still a ways from him. Ghost seemed to surprise her by hunkering down beside her, his back resting against her hip. She raised a hand, tentatively, and let her fingers pass through his fur. Besides his ears flicking again, Ghost didn't react. His head settled over his paws, eyes closing. Jon watched the wonder playing across her face with affection.

"You didn't have to come all the way down here," he said. The anxiety returned to her features, and she went still. Her gaze scanned the dark corners of the room, as if something were to leap out of it. From what she refused to say, and what Sansa had told him, he learned that they'd all spent the entire battle clawing their way out of the belly of the Great Keep.

Jon started to get out of the spring, but her voice stopped him.

"No, don't. I didn't come to disturb you," she said.

He reached out a hand to her. "Then come 'ere already."

With a wry turn of her lips, Larisa slowly got to her feet. Her features pulled into a slight grimace, so he moved closer to where she was and helped her out of her torn, frayed and stained clothes. Her shoes joined the rest of it, and he supported her by the arms as she stepped into the water.

"I didn't know this spring existed," she admitted.

"It helps heat the castle."

Jon noticed that she'd been careful not to show him her back, but on closer inspection, he saw the stretch of newly treated burns that marred between her shoulders. He made sure to keep her chest above the water as he held her to him, and used the scrub brush he'd been using gently on her neck, down to her collarbone, between her breasts.

He could do this much, but he couldn't prevent the scars that would form on her body, like his. The cut along her cheek might fade entirely, but if not, even a thin line would serve to remind him that he hadn't been able to protect her, or anyone else.

Larisa's fingers soothing between his furrowed brows snapped Jon from his thoughts.

"Why are you thinking so intently when I'm right here, sitting on your lap?" she teased. Her other hand trailed down his chest. Out of consideration for his wounds though, her touch stayed innocent enough.

Jon quirked something of a smile. He didn't know how to explain it, or even if he should. But again, she surprised him.

"There will always be more you could've done. But I think you can cut yourself a break, just this once," she said. Then her eyes drifted away from him. "Don't feel like you've let me down. Not me, or anyone else."

Jon grasped her hand that rested on his chest. As much as her words warmed him, there was something else on her mind.

"How's Will?" His thumb traced the back of her hand.

"He's fine," Larisa said, though her voice shook. Realizing it, she ducked her head a little. But as she bit her lip, he watched the tears pool in her eyes. The fear and worry and guilt she'd clearly been holding inside.

Jon held her tightly in his arms. She turned her face into his neck and finally allowed herself to cry, and rest.

* * *

Pain exploded from his arm. It couldn't be helped, so Willem threw out his other hand in an attempt to grab the ledge. He barely did it, but eventually he was able to push himself back up and onto the narrow rampart beneath the window that was already spouting flames.

Larisa had pushed him out the window, but it was obvious why. He couldn't get back in there if he tried. He had no choice but to find another way in if he was to find her again. If she was still alive.

He sidestepped along the ledge until he was able to climb up to the top of the tower, where more of the battle was still raging. Soldiers and the Dead alike were strewn about, limbs and bodies and heads, torsos and extremities. He held in the urge to vomit again and forced himself to keep moving, unsheathing his sword (thank gods it was still at his belt).

" _Look alive!_ "

It was Gendry who screamed at him, just as a Wight's gleaming axe was hovering over him.

" _How long do you plan to sleep?_ "

Will started with a short gasp.

" _Easy now._ "

Gentle hands caressed his forehead. Her green eyes were softer than usual, shining with relief and worry. He gradually took in the candlelight behind her, the sounds of people and crying, cussing, and laughter. His sister sat beside him, weary, but smiling at him.

She helped him sit up, slowly, and when she asked him what he remembered he told her honestly. He remembered the Dead turning to dust, Gendry hauling him down from the tower, Garda treating his wounds, and then nothing afterwards.

"You didn't miss much," Larisa told him. "Jon, Davos, Tyrion, the Dragon Queen, many of us survived. Many did not."

He nodded mutely. The world around him still didn't quite feel real. Maybe she understood that, because she didn't pester him with questions or nagging. She gave him a bowl filled with some of kind broth and meat, a slice of bread, and a cup filled to the brim with water.

As he focused on the food and how good it smelled, Will took it from her, managing a grin.

"You didn't make this, did you?" he asked.

Her eyes met his flatly, her lips thinning. "And if I did?"

"I may's well jump off the tower again."

"Shut your mouth and eat."

* * *

She should've known better than to try to get past Tormund, especially while he had a ram's horn full of wine clutched in his hand and his grizzly arm nearly choking Jon around the neck.

"Ey, ey, ey, where ya think yer goin' missy?" he slurred. Laughed boisterously, he let go of Jon long enough to grabbed her shoulder. Larisa yelped as that large hand of his twirled her around until she practically fell into Jon's lap. Instinctively her arms circled his neck while he caught her around the waist. The man gave her an amused grin, and she blushed. Davos, Northmen, and Wildlings around them laughed along with Tormund as he teased her.

"Aye, this one here's a scrapper, and not too bad 'round the hips." He took a long drink then.

Larisa was already too drunk to be terribly offended, but not yet enough to be free of embarrassment. Blinking with wide eyes, she flushed, refusing to take note of any other man's stare but Jon's. He looked fondly exasperated with Tormund, but his hold tightened on her. Perhaps it was the wine that made her tongue loosen in the presence of his men, and even Sansa and Daenerys who sat further down the table.

She feigned an unassuming smile at the redheaded Wildling. "Are a woman's hips really what's important to you?"

Giving a hearty laugh, Tormund's eyes gleamed.

"A gal with a bit of meat on her bones makes her easy to tenderize."

Despite her cheeks warming further, Larisa laughed along with the rest of them. Maybe it was the blood rushing to her head, but her laughter dissipated into softer giggles as she turned her face into Jon's neck to hide it. She felt his fingers run over her hair, and more gently down her back, mindful of the burns hiding under her clothing. Smiling, she pressed a few lingering kisses under his ear, along his jaw and throat. Jon cleared it a bit awkwardly to cover the hitch in his breath.

Hands drifted lower, squeezing the parts of her he held. His voice was a bit deeper and more gravel than before. "Just now, I probably can't be held accountable for my actions."

Her smile curved into a smirk.

"We do have a problem then."

A chair scraped loudly behind them, and Larisa watched with disinterest as Sansa left the table. Well, that was perfectly fine. Larisa had no intention of sparing her not one more thought tonight.

The feast went on with more fanfare than she'd ever seen in the north, most of it, the person she was a year ago would've considered uncivilized, save for when Daenerys granted Gendry his father's name and the title of Lord of Storm's End. The man seemed grateful, but there was something in his eyes she couldn't place. Like he didn't know what to do with such an honor. He'd soon gone back to drinking with Arya, and Will was with them, finally awake enough to eat.

Eventually Larisa left Jon to revel with the men, who seemed to trust him again after having allied with a Dragon Queen and giving up his kingship. She found herself along the same wall as Tyrion, refilling their cups with rich wine that was warming her insides.

"Your queen drinks alone," she told him, eyeing Daenerys who sat nearly on her own at Jon's table. For the first time, she felt something of sympathy. She knew what it was that kept others away. "Apparently, earning Northerners' trust isn't entirely out of question."

Tyrion snorted indelicately.

"How could she do that, I wonder. By saving the entire North with two whole armies and dragonfire?" Tyrion mused. His eyes raised heavenward. "Oh wait."

Larisa sighed. She should know better than to speak with him when he was drunk. Her gaze wandered, falling on a rather unfortunate exchange.

A woman bold enough to flirt with Sandor Clegane was shoved away, and Martha was next, nearly bowled over by the man as he stormed away from the table. A pitcher flew out of her hands and its contents splashed onto the floor. Who else would help her than Theon Greyjoy?

He knelt beside her on the floor, taking the pitcher of ale, and more tentatively, her hand. Just long enough to pick her up off the floor. His smile, somewhat lacking, still managed to be pleasant. "At least it wasn't wine."

"You look positively green with envy," Tyrion smirked at his cousin. She returned him a baleful glare.

"If I'm green, it's certainly _not_ with envy."

There was a part of her that was pleased, however. She'd long promised Martha she'd repay that debt of spying on her for Sansa. This was a particularly perfect opportunity, if not the moment.

"Yet another spark amidst the moment of revelry," Tyrion muttered. He glanced at his own brother and the warrior, Brienne. Larisa followed his gaze, though she couldn't say she was surprised, considering how passionately she'd defended the man when he first arrived at Winterfell. She shook her head.

Her attentions subconsciously rounded back to Martha and the Greyjoy. Nothing good could come out of that paltry attempt at romance.

"How could such a thing possibly work?" she snarked. Tyrion's brows rose with an amused, and decidedly indecent glint of humor in his eyes.

"Grey Worm and Missandei always seemed happy, though I admit, I never asked," he said, matter-of-factly. She knew he wasn't done.

"Although," he continued predictably, "I know a bit about some…clever contraptions, should young Theon ever request my good council."

Larisa rolled her eyes dismissively. "You truly are disgusting."

"Oh cousin, I didn't take you for a prude," Tyrion smiled. "I'm not so squeamish. You're always welcome to probe my mind when Jon Snow begins to bore you."

Her expression became somewhat pained, as well as disgusted. "Why should I want to probe something so perverse."

"Perhaps you'll thank me for it. I have no doubt _he_ would—"

Larisa walked away from him before he could finish _that_ particular thought. Her gaze traveled across the room again, only to find Jon following Daenerys out of the great hall. She soured, but noticing Tyrion's amused look, she said nothing.

What she _didn't_ need was more talk. What she needed was wine.

* * *

The air was tense between them, as if crackling with her rage. Jon could tell it was taking all of her self-control to keep her composure in front of him, maybe even to keep from lashing out in words. Daenerys had that way of keeping herself dignified, even when things didn't go her way. Her blue eyes were a storm as they finally looked back at him. He knew she believed him, even if she didn't want to.

"Who else knows?" Her voice was quiet, but sharp.

"Just Sam. And Bran," he said.

"And your lover?"

Jon remained silent, but she rolled her eyes all the same.

"I don't want it," he said. "I know what it looks like, that I waited until now to say this. I only waited this long because I didn't want it to matter."

"But it does, and you know it," she retorted hotly. Her temper snapped at its leash.

"You're my queen," he reiterated.

"Which won't mean much to others once they know," she said. "You could be pushed to oppose me. We can't have a true alliance when your very _blood_ opposes me."

Jon wanted to point out that their blood should make them family, but he knew, better than most, how blood wasn't everything. "You helped save their lives—"

"And still, they choose you." Everything about her was cold, but he knew it was her pain that made it so. He could see now, how much she craved to belong in this place where she was born, but couldn't truly know. She turned away from him for a moment, lost in her thoughts.

"I don't…want to take action against you," she said. "You're a good ally, a good man. But I will if I must. No one will know of your true parentage, not even your sisters, and our alliance will stand."

Daenerys left him soon afterward. Then Jon stood alone in his chamber, feeling like a fool.

He sighed heavily.

Removing his leathers, he only put on warmer layers before leaving his room. His path, as it so often did, led to hers. He knocked, but didn't receive an answer. Maybe she was asleep, or still at the feast.

Just in case, he cracked the door open. A small smile overtook his gloom as he saw her there, trying to climb from the floor onto her bed. To his surprise, she glared at him.

"I saw you, Jon Snow." She pointed a swaying finger at him. Her dilated eyes narrowed. "I saw you with the Dragon Queeeen."

Jon gently grabbed her under the arms and easily hefted her more comfortable on the bed. Larisa was nearly limp in his arms, but still so stubborn as she pushed against his chest. She repeated again, that she'd seen him with Daenerys.

"Aye, you did. But I wasn't _with_ her," he told her patiently. "You realize she's my aunt by blood?"

She snorted. "That doesn't matter much in my family…nor hers."

Then she sighed.

"Men are pigs," Larisa said vehemently, though it lost some of its effect with the way she finally wrapped her arms around his neck, rubbing herself against him like a cat. His mouth threatened a smile, but he managed against the laugh bubbling in his throat. He hadn't taken her for the jealous type.

"Can't argue with that," he offered. Despite the burden on his shoulders from that unpleasant, but necessary encounter with that queen, some of it was easing already. He helped Larisa out of her old clothes, even with her half-hearted complaining that she was too cold to be undressed, he eventually got her into something warm to sleep in.

"There now, enough outta you," he teased, and fairly dropped her into the bed. She giggled, taking him with her. Careful not to squish her beneath him with her clumsiness, Jon settled himself on her other side and brought her close, laying her head on his chest. Her fingers roamed beneath his shirt and started tracing patterns up and down his chest, and along his stomach.

Jon yanked the covers over them and reached for the lit candles at her bedside.

Suddenly he jerked with a hiss, almost spilling the hot wax on her head. At once he reached for her hand that had wandered much farther down, inside his pants to caress him. Her lips were already tracing the same patterns her fingers hand on his chest.

"The fuck're you doing?" he laughed. "You want to burn yourself?"

Larisa raised her head a moment. Her eyes, vivid green even in the dim light, were unrepentant as she smiled.

Jon blew out the light.


	17. Reckless Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I just want to say I hope everyone is staying safe during this crazy time of quarantine. Sending out healthy vibes to everyone!
> 
> For this chapter I need to make a little disclaimer: one of the few things I liked about season 8 was that they just went for it on the Jaime/Brienne storyline, but then of course, the ruined it. So I'm just going to implement how I thought that should've gone. I've gotten some notes that this story is using too much of the crummy stuff from that season, and while I might agree with some of that, I do have plans for these next chapters that are going to take things in a different direction. So please bear with me!

**Every Loyalty**

.

_**Chapter XVII:** _

_**Reckless Talk** _

As usual, she was angry with him.

Jon counted it lucky that the stone walls of his home were thick. But his bedroom, however spacious, still buzzed with tension. He finally stopped pacing, while Larisa faced away from him at the opposite end of the room. She sat at his writing desk, gripping the edge of it as her eyes continued to blaze.

"You once told me not to worry about problems that surely wouldn't matter if we survived the Night King," she said tightly. Eventually, her eyes lifted to meet his. "This seems a bit counter-intuitive."

Jon sensed that some of her immediate anger had dissipated, enough for him to sit down closer to her at the end of the bed.

"The longer I waited, the harder it would be to tell Daenerys the truth about me. About our family."

Which was true, though Jon rightly presumed she would spark once again. Her fingers curled around the quill bottle on his desk, as likely she was contemplating throwing it at him.

"You also promised me you would be less reckless, Jon!" she snapped.

He sighed heavily. "She knows I don't want to be king—"

"Yes, yes, I know. But for posterity's sake, let's revisit this again," Larisa's face pinched as she rubbed at her temples, leaning back in her chair. Jon crossed his arms. It had been a long morning, and it was shaping up to be an even longer afternoon.

"Why do you loathe the idea so much if you accepted being made King in the North in the first place?" she asked. "Your people chose you."

"And how many of them wish they hadn't?" Jon said. It was a rush of words that left him suddenly, instinctually, born of frustration and long-suppressed thoughts. Larisa looked as surprised as he felt, to admit what had been festering in his heart. Perhaps since taking off the mantle of Lord Commander.

"What do you mean?" she asked. Her gaze was gentler, but also genuinely curious. Bracing his hands on his knees, he released a deep breath.

"My brother, Robb. He was the one who trained his whole life to be a leader of men," Jon said. "When I took the Black, even when I became Lord Commander, it felt…right. And look how that turned out."

Sometimes, he still felt phantom aches where the scars on his body lied. Just now, the one over his heart fairy throbbed.

"The truth is, I lost my men's trust when I sought out Daenerys's help…I don't regret my choice. I don't regret anything, but I also can't blame those who chose not to fight with me because of those decisions."

Jon stared down at the floor between his knees. He heard Larisa rise out of her seat, felt the bed dip beside him. Her thigh was warm where it brushed his, but she didn't yet touch him. He was grateful enough to have her understand and sense her support.

"They're fighting with you now, whether you realize it or not," she said. "But Jon, what happens after Daenerys claims King's Landing? Do you think she'll let you live in peace, in dominion over the entire North? Whatever happens next, no one will be safe."

"She's not her father," Jon refuted.

"You really don't know that, do you?" Larisa huffed. She stood, gaining distance between them by filling a cup of wine. His eyes traced the alluring curve of her waist and hips as he warred within himself.

How could one woman be so entirely maddening? He knew she was coming from a place of concern, but it was still frustrating to know she didn't trust his judgment.

"This battle is going to ravage the South," she said, lifting the cup to her lips. "If my mother is still where Varys claims she is, I want to send her a message to travel north…though I wonder if she would trust a letter. For all she knows it could be a ransom."

The thought was so bizarre, Jon couldn't help but laugh. "Why the hell would I ransom you?"

Larisa shot him a peeved look.

"Fine, a trap by Cersei then. Look, clearly my mother is a cautious woman if she's been waylaid in Dorne all this time."

Jon held in another sigh. He felt the argument brewing, but chose to believe she would be reasonable. "We can't have any missives going south. There's too much risk of interception."

He stood and went to Larisa, meeting her frown with a small smile. She set down her cup and allowed him to pull her gently into his embrace. Her face turned up to his as her expressive features took hold of him.

"Please, Jon," she said earnestly. "You've known from the beginning that I just want my family to be safe."

"She's safer where she is, Larisa, and so are you," he said. "You know I can't think of just you. I have a responsibility to my people, to—"

Larisa pushed at his chest and out of his arms. Her anger flashed again, but this time it was different; he saw veiled hurt in her eyes.

"And to your queen, is that it?" she said hotly. "But not to me. I'm only your mistress after all."

He could hardly believe her—the insane path her mind worked to create such conclusions. If she wanted him to embrace being a leader to his people, how is it that she couldn't understand the sacrifices that came with responsibility?

But maybe that was it. Larisa had come from a family that likely hadn't placed much responsibilities on her outside of marriage. And a family of snakes as well. He understood what kind of person she'd had to become in order to survive it, but as with Sansa, it had left more than just scars.

Despite that bit of clarity, he couldn't help how his temper flared.

"Is this how you get your way? By talking in circles until you think you've won?" he retorted. "Maybe that worked on your husband, but I won't be manipulated. Not by you, or anyone else."

"Oh, but you'll let Daenerys do it." Larisa met his raised tone with her own. "You gave her exactly what she needed to back you into a corner. You think she's so merciful and tender-hearted, but when has she _ever_ spared her enemies?"

And it always came back to this.

Jon resisted the urge to shake her. How many times would they have the same argument?

"Without her, _we'd be blood and ashes on the ground!_ I won't betray someone when it suits me. I won't go back on my word either."

"It's worth your life, then. Do you think she's survived this long by holding onto compunctions like honesty and loyalty?" she mocked. "Or do you want to be Ned Stark that badly?"

Though his muscles were coiled like a spring, he only stared back at her blankly. The moment she finished, he could see that she immediately regretted her words. Her chin was defiant, but she looked away from him, hiding the tremble in her lip. He knew he'd hurt her, speaking of the man she'd been forced to marry. She'd dealt Jon in kind.

But the longer he stared at the side of her face, the more he longed for what they'd shared just last night. Security, intimacy, warmth, and all the rest.

So Jon reached out for her hand. She turned to him, mild surprise flitting across her face.

"I know what you're saying, better than you think," he said. "But I need you to trust me. _Please_."

* * *

Larisa let go of his hand.

She couldn't yet reconcile her instincts about the Dragon Queen with the sting of everything they'd said to one another. She needed time—to think, to busy her mind with something else, or maybe just to sit and simply be. Regardless, she needed to leave this room.

The moment she left Jon behind, the door shutting behind her, she was faced with her brother. But Will wore a strange look on his face, serious and very much unlike him.

"Why are you just standing there?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

It was taking a moment for him to work out what he wanted to say, but soon enough his confused, furrowing brows began to worry her. "You knew?"

"Knew what?" she asked. Finally, his expression settled on anger.

"You knew where Mother was, and you never told me?"

Larisa looked back at him, shock making her silent and uncertain. She knew she often managed to annoy him, but rarely had she ever seen her brother truly cross. Betrayed.

"I can't believe you," he said, and turned away from her, disappearing down the hall before she could stop him. She sighed, heavily.

Making her way down the stairs at a more sedate pace, she left the warmth and darkness of the keep and for once was able to take pleasure in clear, bright skies above. The sun was a balm to her nerves, and she took a deep breath to sustain it.

Eventually she wandered into the kitchens, where Garda was already preparing the evening meal. Martha was nowhere to be seen, likely attending Sansa in that case.

"My dear lady-lass," the woman greeted. There was humor in her eyes as she took in Larisa's glum look. "Have a restful holiday then? I've only been skinnin' rabbits all morning long. _Alone_."

"I'm sorry," Larisa said. She didn't have the energy for their usual banter. But she took up her usual place and picked up a carving knife to slice the meat into parts. She was aware of Garda watching her from the corner of her eye, a small grin playing at her features.

She continued tearing furry hide from muscle as she said, "I'll have you know. Without your cheery face, I cried tears with my whole heart this morning, I did."

Larisa's lips curved slightly. She knew a bait when she saw it, but it worked all the same.

"Your whole heart?" she supplied. "How hard it must be, to wring a tear from an old stone."

The woman heaved a laugh.

"How's the lad?" she asked. Though she must have seen how Larisa soured, because her gaze took on a knowing gleam.

"Aye, what'd he do, now?"

Once again, Larisa sighed. "Unfortunately, it wasn't him this time."

* * *

Davos had told him not to bother, but Willem couldn't help it. He snuck into the council meeting by pretending to stand watch at the door. When the last person entered the room, he held the door open by a fraction and slid in just behind.

He wouldn't have bothered, but he didn't feel like getting caught in the halls by Larisa. His irritation still distracted him from some of the meeting. Really though, he didn't think he missed much in the beginning. Both Daenerys' allies and Jon's had sustained major losses. About half the Unsullied and Dothraki, and even more of the Northmen. But the Dragon Queen still wanted to go south, to destroy Cersei and her army, now strengthened by a new force. The Golden Company she hired with stolen gold.

As far as he could tell, the plan was simple. Corner Cersei with their combined forces, starve out the city if necessary, and use the Queen's remaining dragons to keep the people of King's Landing in check without destroying everything with dragon fire.

"If it comes to it," Daenerys warned, "I will not hesitate to smoke Cersei out."

"The men we have left are exhausted. Many of them are wounded, they'll fight better if they have time to rest and recuperate," Sansa pointed out.

"I came North to fight alongside your people, at great cost to myself," said Daenerys. "Now that the time has come to reciprocate, you want to _postpone_?"

"It's not just our people, it's yours," Sansa replied succinctly. "You want to throw them into a war they're not ready to fight?"

"The longer I leave my enemies, the stronger they become," Daenerys snapped.

Her voice was as tired as she looked, despite how clean and well-dressed she was. Will reminded himself that she'd probably lost the most—her general Grey Worm, Jorah Mormont, and likely much more than that. But now her blue eyes were dark and cold, and he wondered if Larisa was right to worry about Jon.

After going over their immediate plans for preparation and departure for the South, the meeting ended and dispersed. Will left soon before then, so he wouldn't be caught in the back of the room. He would have left, but Jon caught him in the hall by his shoulder.

"Walk with me," he said.

Will suspiciously wondered why, considering what he'd heard that morning, but he followed anyway.

Jon led Will out to the stables and fitted him with a horse. He called it a final riding lesson while they patrolled the outlands of Winterfell where men were building more weapons, shields, and armor. Will was grateful enough to have fresh air, but he could admit, it was nice to ride beside Jon. Like this, he could pretend they were equals, nearly shoulder to shoulder.

Jon finally turned to him with a small sigh. "You're going to stay here this time."

Will's smile fell. He didn't want to stay in the north, he wanted to fight with everyone else—against Cersei.

"But—"

"I know you want to come with us, but I need you here to protect this place while I'm gone," he said. "My brother and Sansa, and your sister…I'm looking out for you too."

Will's temper finally snapped. "Why are all of you always trying to protect me! I've survived this long, and I don't need anyone's help."

Jon watched him for a moment. He looked caught between surprised and amused, but also something else. Something strange.

"Are you still mad at your sister?" he asked. Will scoffed and looked away at the gently falling snow around them. The men and women working, sawing, welding.

"Will," Jon prompted. "Would you have gone to your mother, even if she'd told you the truth?"

Will grumpily refused to answer, though in his heart he knew.

"Now at least you don't have to feel guilty for making that choice," Jon offered.

"It's still a lie," he said. And he meant that. She hadn't had to lie to him to get her way, like she did with everyone else. Except maybe with Jon, Will had noticed.

"Aye, she should've told you. But she knew you're bull-head would've still brought you here, where you've fought bravely and honorably."

Will looked to the other man, wondering if he really meant that. "Then why're you leaving me behind?"

Jon met him with a grim look.

"Haven't you had enough taste for war yet?"

Will looked down at the reigns in his hands. It wasn't so much that he wanted to be surrounded by blood, death, and chaos. But it was more than the instinct he felt in his gut when he climbed that tower and fought across Winterfell's rooftops.

"I just want to be where I belong," he said.

"I understand that," Jon nodded. "Believe me, I do. But your sister would have my head if I didn't make sure you're safe."

Will shook his. "She doesn't have to look out for me anymore."

"That time'll come. Sooner than you think."

* * *

What was better, lying to protect the ones you love, or to protect yourself? In Jon's view, a lie was still a lie, by omission or not. With good intentions, or not.

He'd had a week to tell his siblings about the truth of his heritage, and he meant to. But each time Daenerys' warning echoed in the chamber of his thoughts. And in those moments, so did Larisa's, and his own words to Willem. It was a vicious cycle he couldn't break himself out of.

On the final day that his men and the remaining Unsullied-Dothraki forces were to head south, Tormund announced that morning he was taking the Free Folk back to the "real" North. It stung to part with the man, and it raised his anxiety to know Winterfell would be that much more vulnerable afterwards, but he couldn't fault the Wildling for it.

Later that morning, he secured his provisions to his horse and noticed Tormund accomplishing the same thing with his men.

"This is the North, you know. And the Free Folk are welcome to stay," Jon tried.

"It isn't home," Tormund said simply. In that span of time when their eyes met, Jon understood what he meant, and wondered if that was why Castle Black never felt warm enough.

"I understand," he nodded. "This is…farewell then."

"For a time, maybe," the redhaired man agreed. He clasped his arm with that large hand of his. "I doubt I'll be free of you yet."

"Tormund!"

Both men turned their heads at the call. Larisa was approaching them at a hurried pace with a wrapped parcel in her hands.

"Be careful with that one," Tormund said. "I think she likes me more than you."

"I wouldn't doubt it," Jon groused, though still with something of a smile on his face.

Catching her breath, she handed over the parcel of goods and covered the Wildling's hands with her own.

"I'm sure it'll only last the day, but a little extra couldn't hurt," she smiled. Tormund grinned down at her.

"Probably right, but it's the thought that counts," he winked.

Larisa laughed. Raising on her toes, she had to crane her neck far to reach his cheek with a kiss.

"I won't say goodbye, so you won't be a stranger," she said. Tormund's bearded smirk was too wide as he shot Jon a triumphant look.

"Well, how can I say not to that?"

"All right, get on your way," Jon chuckled. Tormund let out a boisterous laugh and turned on his heel, carrying the parcel under his arm as he went.

Jon hesitated only a moment. Finally he reached for Larisa's hand. She'd been watching Tormund and his men gather and prepare to leave, but his touch earned her attention. She still held some reservations, but eventually she allowed him to draw closer and hold her in his arms for the first time in days. Soon enough, her arms slid around his back and clung to him as her body relaxed against his. He pressed a kiss at the top of her head.

"Please, don't do anything reckless," he smiled. Larisa scoffed.

"Don't lose your head," she warned.

She was almost teasing, but there was too much weight in her words to be simple joking. He knew her better than that.

Jon pulled away just enough to see her, raising a hand to brush strands of her brown hair behind her ear and cradle the side of her face. His thumb traced across her cheek, over her lips. Then she surprised him, reaching up to press those lips to his. He responded in kind, dragging her to him even closer, letting his fingers sift through her hair, only half braided for once.

Her hands gripped the back of his leather armor, then his arms to hold him close. When they finally parted, taking in the crisp cold air, she told him.

"Don't let that be the last."

* * *

If he was honest, Will felt sour. He'd been left behind, and his sister was even more dour than ever before (not that he was ready to talk to her anyway). He was patrolling the back corners between the various keeps, even though it was late enough that he should've probably been sleeping. It was dark as hell, but in the recent months of darker days, he'd learned to see well enough by now in the near-pitch of night, letting the moon light his way.

He was about to turn another corner when he heard an angry shout.

" _You're being an idiot!_ "

Will peaked around the wall, slightly startled to see Brienne of Tarth in nothing but a fur coat. He'd never seen her in anything less but full armor. But she faced Ser Jaime, who seemed to have saddled a horse. He looked pained, but his mouth curved in a derisive smirk that didn't reach his eyes.

"Why, because I've done my deed, had my way, and about to escape into the wind?"

It was harsh, considering they'd probably done what Will thought they had. But Brienne didn't look fooled. Her frown was unimpressed at best.

"You're throwing away everything you've worked for," she said. "You may not be a good man, but you're better than this."

Jaime grimaced. He didn't seem to agree. "Yet you bedded me."

"Is it important to you?" she asked. "What I think of you?"

Silence stretched between them. So long that Will began to grow uncomfortable just watching this morbid scene unfold. But then Ser Jaime offered a kind of answer.

"It's not about you."

Despite the words, his tone was gentle. Kind even. His eyes were soft and full of emotion Will had never seen in his cousin.

"But you're right, I'm not a good man," Jaime said. "I've done hateful things, for _her_. Because I wanted to. Because…so she should die by my hand."

Brienne scoffed angrily. "What hand?"

Will covered his mouth to keep from laughing, but Jaime looked down at his stump with a quirk of his brow. Eventually, he looked up at the woman with honest eyes.

"It's my debt to pay, Brienne."

Silently, before he was found, Will left the wall and that scene behind. He made it all the way to his room before he allowed himself to take a full breath. Over and over it played in his mind, and as he looked down at the sword Jon and Davos had commissioned for him, he thought of where they were already traveling toward a bloody battle. Didn't he owe something to Jon, who gave him his life? Was staying here, comfortable and safe, enough to repay it?

_Where did he belong?_

* * *

Larisa had never attempted something quite as stupid as she was about to do, but she had no other choice. A missive had come to her just this morning, shortly after she'd found her brother missing.

Then she had deliberately knocked on Sansa's door and requested an audience. The girl had been notably surprised, but she soon hid it behind a convincing wall of indifference and derision. They sat at her table, both tense and uncomfortable.

"I'll send a search party, but if he's already made it beyond Winterfell's borders, I can't do anything about your brother," she said, once Larisa had said her piece.

While she had expected as much, she wasn't in the habit of taking no for an answer. She opened her mouth to continue, but Sansa beat her to it.

"I won't allow you to go south either," she said curtly. "Even if Willem does make it to the battle, Jon has enough to deal with already."

"That's exactly what I mean," Larisa said. Sansa studied her, likely reading something more in her expression besides worry for her brother.

"What're you talking about?" she asked.

In truth, Larisa had been deliberating whether to enact this particular plan for some time, but she'd never thought Jon would leave himself so vulnerable. She'd thought his honorable nature would surely have forced him to clue in his brother and sisters, but it seemed Larisa would have to take a rather large gamble.

"There's something you need to know," she said. "About Jon."

They spoke long into the morning. Sansa often reached for the pitcher of wine to settle her nerves and still her shaking hands.

"And Daenerys knows he's the rightful king," she clarified. Larisa agreed.

"Here's what we both know to be true," Larisa said. "Jon will be in danger the moment Daenerys seizes the throne. Even though he continues to swear his oaths, she knows his secret won't remain hidden for long."

"And I know her. She wants to burn that city to the ground if it means ridding herself of Cersei," Sansa said.

Larisa nodded. "If she takes the Red Keep by force like she really intends, and Jon opposes her?"

"Or the people discover he's the rightful king, and decide to raise him up?" Sansa posed.

"They won't be enough to protect him, and I doubt Tyrion would be able to convince her Jon doesn't pose a threat to her rule," Larisa reasoned. "This is all conjecture and guessing, but if something does go wrong there, he won't have any support. We won't have any way of knowing, and even if we did, it would be too late."

Sansa watched her carefully. "You seem to have something in mind."

Larisa took in a slow breath as she thought on her words.

"If we go south," she said, "you may have enough political sway to help him."

Immediately, Sansa's doubt returned. She regarded her mistrustfully.

"How could going south possibly help anyone other than yourself?"

"Not just south, Sansa. We must go to Dorne."

"You could be luring me into some convoluted trap. Why should I listen to anything you have to say?" Sansa stood angrily. Larisa's temper flared, and she joined her, slapping her hand hard on the table.

"Because, you suspicious, pig-headed harpy," she barked, "there is a new prince in Dorne. And my mother holds his ear."

Incensed as she was, she could see Sansa processing exactly what she'd said. The gears of her mind concocting the possibilities as quickly as Larisa had. Her blue gaze was calculating, even as her lips formed a hint of a smile.

"Explain."


End file.
